- LIBRARY

OF THE

Theological Semi-nary,

JDJ3Ti\rr:KTOTNL N.J.

BR 100 .U64 1873

<_ Upham, Thomas Cogswell

1799,-1872. '

s Absolute religion

Hook,

ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

A VIEW OF THE ABSOLUTE RELIGION, BASED ON PHILO-
SOPHICAL PRINCIPLES AND THE DOCTRINES
OF THE BIBLE.

J BY

THOMAS C. UPHAM, D.D., LL.D.

AUTHOR OF

LIFE AND RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MADAME DE GUYON,

"A SYSTEM OF MENTAL PHILOSOPHY,'" " THE

INTERIOR OR HIDDEN LIFE," ETC., ETC.

NEW YORK:

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS,

FOURTH AVE. & TWENTY-THIRD STREET.
I 3/3-

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by

THOMAS C. UPHAM,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

Wm. McCrea & Co., Stereotypers, lanue, Littlk & Hillmak,

PRINTERS,

Newburgh, N. Y. 10s TO 1U WoosTIiR StrekT) n.

TO THE READER.

This Volume, entitled the Absolute Religion,
comprises some of the unpublished writings of
THOMAS C. Upham, deceased. An amanuensis had
been engaged to copy his manuscripts, written with
pencil, the day preceding an attack of paralysis, May
20th, 187 1. This paralysis, causing blindness of one
eye, and general debility, rendered him unable to
give any farther attention to the work. A second
attack of paralysis, as he was rising from his bed on
the morning of March 10th, 1872, terminated his
life April 2d 1872, six o'clock a. m., at the age of
seventy three years. During these three weeks of
prostration he was unable to articulate distinctly.
The only connected sentence clearly understood is
this : "My spirit is with God."

Several chapters of the work were left partly
written, and of other chapters, only the headings
and leading thoughts remain. The fact that the
author did not complete the work, must be received
as an apology for any lack of completeness, in the
outline, arrangement and finish of the work. The
aim of the author seems to be to unfold and to har-
monize as far as may be, religious views and opin-
ions, by explaining them on the basis of a sound

IV TO THE READER.

philosophy, in the hope that some minds might be
benefited by such a philosophical statement. The
aim is a great one. And the philosophic and chris-
tian man who loves to see God in providence, and
God in man, and religion a reasonable service, will
appreciate this effort of one who made the study
of man in his mental powers and capacities, the one
great study of his life ; and whose highest aim, in
every practical way, was to benefit by word and
deed his brother man.

The responsibility of issuing such a work, which
the author did not complete, and which he did not
himself revise, is only balanced by the desire that
good may be accomplished however imperfect the
work.

The following sentences are an extract from his
preface to " Divine Union " a work published by
him in 1857, and are appropriate here.

" In writing this work I have no private or party

interests to subserve, but only wish to do, what I

may seem, in the providence of God called to do,

for that cause of Christ, of God, and humanity,

which is dearer to me than anything else. And

this is a consolation which always attends me, — the

full belief that the truth will live and do the good

appropriate to it, and that all error will and must

die."

PHCEBE LORD UPHAM.
New York, May, 1873.

CONTENTS.

I.

TAUE

The Absolute Religion considered in connection with
the Doctrines of the Bible, especially the Teach-
ings of Christ' . .9

II.
The Personality of God 20

III.
God as Life 32

IV.
Identity of Life and Love 3S

V.
God as Unity and Duality .45

VI.

The Son of God 68

VII.
Necessity and Possibility of a Divine Manifestation . 79

VIII.
Christ as the Fulfilment of the Law .... 88

IX.
The Second or New Birth 95

viii CONTENTS.

X.

PAGE

Relation of the First to the Second Birth . . . 102

XL

Relation of Moral Evil to Freedom, and its Remedy . 116

XII.

The Divine Purposes 128

XIII.

Universality of Religious Thought 138

XIV.
Harmony of Religiour Opinions 147

XV.
Optimism 154

XVI.
The Objective and Subjective in Religion . . . .163

XVII.
Unities and Diversities . 169

XVIII.
View of the Doctrine of Sacrifices . . . . .179

XIX.

Growth of the Idea of God 185

XX.

Of the Satisfaction of Divine Justice . . . .191

CONTENTS. ix

XXI.

PAGE

The Doctrine of a Judgment affirmed by Absolute

Religion J95

XXII.
The Doctrine of Heaven and Hell 199

XXIII.

Of the Sin against the Holy Ghost, or the Sin which

cannot be forgiven 209

XXIV.

Prayer in its Relation to the Absolute Religion . . 215

XXV.
Relation of Faith to Salvation 222

XXVI.
Divine Influences 22§

XXVII.

Explanation of Existing Practical Methods of Teach-
ing . 235

XXVIII.
Contrasted Views of the Selfish and Essential Life . 242

XXIX.

Mediatorialism as a Universal and Practical Principle . 251

XXX.

Explanation of Terms Regarding the Essential Life . 262

x CONTENTS.

XXXI.

PAGE

Evidences of the Existence of the Essential Life . . 268

XXXII.

The Essential Life Reaches to all Existences . . 280

XXXIII.
The Power of the Essential Life 288

XXXIV.

Locality of God and the Moment — Personal Experi-
ence '. 297

Absolute Religion .

CHAPTER I.

The Absolute Religion considered in connection with
the doctrines of the Bible, especially the teachings
of Christ.

i. It is not difficult for the reflecting mind to
see, in the currents of thought which characterize
the present period, a tendency to bring into notice,
and to give emphasis to what is called the Absolute
Religion. Many persons, who would not willingly
be regarded as irreligious, have expressed a desire
for a religion founded upon the exercise of reason
and upon philosophical principles, and not exclu-
sively or chiefly upon authority. The utterance
which is heard in this direction, is every day grow-
ing louder and more imperative. It is the expres-
sion of the views and feelings of persons whose sin-
cerity cannot well be doubted ; and who, at least,
have a claim upon our respect for the intellectual

I0 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

ability which they have often manifested. It is an
utterance, therefore, whether addressed to us as
Christians, or merely as men of thought and philo-
sophic inquiry, which cannot wisely be allowed to go
unheeded.

2. The first inquiry which claims our attention,
is, What are we to understand by the Absolute
Religion ? It is perhaps proper to say, that the an-
swer to this question will be likely to develop itself
more fully and satisfactorily in the course of the dis-
cussions which are to follow. And yet a few words
on the subject may properly be said here. In the
first place it may be remarked in general terms and
without going minutely into reasons, that the Abso-
lute Religion is that religion which, harmonizing
with the truths and requisitions of God on the one
hand, and with the nature of man as related to God
on the other, is necessarily as wide in its extent and
its application as humanity itself; — a religion which
neither limited by geographical boundaries, nor de-
pendent for its existence on civil and political enact-
ments, is the inheritance of all men equally, what-
ever their name or place or condition, by virtue of
their common nature. In other words, it is a reli-
gion which is universal.

In the second place, it is that religion which
finding its subjective expression in ideas rather than

ABSOLUTE RELIGION. H

in sensations, and in those ideas which are fundamen-
tal in themselves and in their relations, vindicates its
claim to Absoluteness, because it is unchangeable ;
and is therefore the religion, not only of all men and
all nations but of all time and all ages. That reli-
gion, which is found to be merely an incident of a na-
tion's or people's history, and which passes away
with the transition of the temporary circumstances
on which it is founded, fails to present any just claim
to this character of immutableness and universality.
The Absolute Religion is something very different
from this. Founded in the nature and constitution
of things, but harmonizing with the thought and
sustained by the power of the highest Intelligence
in the universe, and being revealed to human appre-
hension by means of fundamental and universal ideas,
which speak inwardly and intuitionally and with a
voice of authority, it is necessarily a religion which
exists everywhere, and exists forever. No antagon-
isms of the changeable and the finite, no chance nor
change, which mars the face of human affairs, nor
hardness of heart, nor slowness of belief, can triumph
over the truth and supremacy which are its basis.

3. Characterized by universality in its extent and
application, and by permanency in duration, it has al-
so this distinctive and paramount feature, that it car-
ries with it a binding and controlling obligation upon

12

ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

the thoughts, feelings and actions of all men and of
all moral beings, by a virtue or power which is lodged
in itself, and not by means or in virtue of any power,
authority or command outside of itself. It may be
aided by such outside influences but is not neces-
sarily dependent upon them. Its authority is its
own ; its word is law. It may not be out of place to
make the explanatory remark here, that there is a
great difference between a thing considered in its
own nature, and its announcement or revelation.
The thing or object in question presents itself in one
aspect ; the announcement of it in another. For in-
stance, the announcement of the Absolute Religion
may have occurred at a particular period or in a par-
ticular country, in the era of Moses, or in the era of
Christ, at Sinai or at Jerusalem, at Rome or Athens,
or in other periods and in other countries ; but the
thing itself, the religious truth, involved by a sort of
eternal, generation in the great facts of the universe,
has no time or place, no beginning or end.

4. Such, in general terms is the Absolute Reli-
gion. This religion has had its interpreters in all
ages of the world ; men who, with different degrees
of mental illumination, have attempted to give ex-
pression to the great religious thought, written in
the hieroglyphics of universal nature ; — Socrates,
Plato, Cicero, Seneca, Confucius, Zoroaster, Sakya-

ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

13

Mouni, and many others, who have seen some-
thing of the great interior light, which is destined in
the progress of its rising to illuminate all lands, and
to harmonize all moral and religious separations. I
allude to these men who seem to me to have been
to some extent the subjects of a divine guidance, in
no lightness of spirit, but with a sincere reverence
and gratitude. Each in his degree and place, and
in reference to his age and country, may be regarded
as having a divine mission, and as being in some im-
portant sense the minister of God. Nevertheless
there came in the fullness of time a Man who was
greater than these. If I have studied him aright in
what has been left us of his life and doctrines, the
great teacher of the Absolute Religion, and stand-
ing far above all others in the measurement of his
insight, is Jesus of Nazareth. The highest and most
reliable expression of the Absolute Religion is found
as it seems to me in his wonderful words.

5. The object of the present work, undertaken
with much mistrust of myself but in the hope that
it will be found to harmonize with the truth, is not
only to announce some of the leading doctrines of
the Absolute Religion, but to show their identity
with the doctrines of Christ. The religion of Christ,
which is only another name for the principles involv-
ed in the teachings of Christ, is the Absolute Reli-

14 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

gion ; because having incarnated itself in Christ and
thus shown its divine beauty in the human form, it
henceforth belongs to man, not perhaps in the tem-
porary and changing incidents of his history, but to
man in his essential and universal nature, and there-
fore is the religion of humanity. The religion of
Christ is the Absolute Religion because, though it
may be said in its personal applications to grow up
and to put forth the buds and flowers of feeling, the
rich and beautiful experiences of emotions and af-
fections, it nevertheless has its root in the deepest
thought, and is both grounded in, and harmonizes
with, unchangeable intuitions. The religion of
Christ is the Absolute Religion, though man is its
object, and is also, in the exercise of his powers of
perception and reasoning, the appointed and neces-
sary instrument of its development, yet being found-
ed in the nature and constitution of things, and thus
being beyond measurements of time, it synchronizes
with God himself in its origin and continuance, and
goes step by step with the divine authority in the
assertion of its universal empire.

6. I am aware, that the high claims now put
forth in favor of the religion of Christ, considered in
its relation to the absolute truth, are not always al-
lowed by that class of thinkers and inquirers to whom
allusion was made in the beginning of the chapter.

ABSOLUTE RELIGION. I 5

And what is more, they are not always, and perhaps
not generally insisted on by those who are distinct-
ively and truly known as Christians. Not unfre-
quently the Christian says, as if conscious of his ina-
bility to stand firm in the great battle of thought,
and willing to find the first refuge that presents
itself, that the religion of Christ, standing on a basis
peculiar to itself, may be regarded as above and
beyond reason. I confess that I hesitate in the
acceptance of such expressions. So far from this
being the correct view, there is a sense undoubtedly,
in which it may be affirmed without presumption,
that there is nothing above reason ; neither God nor
the creatures of God ; neither men nor angels ;
neither finite nor Infinite. If it be admitted that
God exists, it is still true, that he is not available to
us as an existence, and is not known to us as an ex-
istence, and his existence cannot be logically affirm-
ed and accepted, except through the instrumentality
of perception and reasoning. If indeed by reason
be meant that sad semblance of reason, which by its
own action is separated from, and is not enlightened
and aided by contact with the everlasting truth ; in
other words, that form of reason or semblance of rea-
son, which in being separated from the great Source
and Guide of all our faculties is perverted by igno-
rance, prejudice, and passion, then the matter pre-

:6 absolute religion.

sents itself in another aspect, and is entitled to an-
other answer. But reason in the true sense, reason
in the greatness of its intuitional, as well as its rela-
tional and inductive movement, reason such as God
is able to incarnate inspirationally in the thought
and intellect of man, has nothing above it. True
reason is God's highest thought ; it holds a position
which it cannot change ; it sustains an office which
it cannot abnegate ; and the whole universe is not
only dependent upon it for its revelation as an object
of knowledge, but in all its coming progress accepts
its aid, and marches in harmony with it.

7. — Let it be understood furthermore, that we
have no controversy with much of that which is
known in the history of human knowledge under
the name of philosophy. The philosophers have
had their time of affirmation ; and undoubtedly they
have said instructive things on a great variety of.
subjects. They have felt at liberty to speak with
boldness on the subject now before us ; and some-
times with a smile of incredulity and even of opposi-
tion on their lips, as if it were a thing impossible,
that the peasant of Nazareth, the man who was cru-
cified, could hold up a light in the presence of the
world's philosophic thought and culture. Neverthe-
less the child of the humble Judean mother made the
attempt. We read that when he was Only twelve

ABSOLUTE RELIGION. 1 7

years of age, the inspiration from the heavens was
so strong upon him and his heart was so full, that
he entered into this great controversy. And even
then his understanding and answers were matters of
astonishment. But the hand of the mother, who
was chosen to bring him within the sphere of hu-
manity, withdrew him from the contest. Her heart
had prophetic intimations of the future ; but the
time had not yet come. He dwelt in Nazareth, and
with his heart open to the influx of the truth, he
" increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with
God and man." And when in the maturity of man-
hood he came again into the field, his opponents
met him with all the appliances and aids of human
learning and wisdom ; but ignorant of that divine
philosophy which is baptized from the * heavens, and
therefore greatly disordered and defeated in the ar-
gument, they stopped the discussion by nailing Him
to the Cross. But there is something in the man of
truth which can never die. He passed on. In the
language of the Scriptures, he went up on high.
And philosophy, not understanding the things which
are seen by faith and not by sight, looked here and
there but could not find Him.

The teacher of Nazareth, dead but living, no
longer a child but clothed with heavenly manhood,
and who teaches by means of inspirations and influ-

!g ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

ences wrought in the great school of the human
heart, still claims his right to be heard. He is still
a teacher of the Absolute Religion.

8. — It remains to be added, which I think will
naturally occur to the reader, that the doctrine of
the Absolute Religion pertains to essentials and not
to the mere incidents of things ; to the principles
rather than the form ; and not so much to institu-
tions and ceremonies, as to that which underlies
them.

It deals with those things, as we have already
seen, which from their nature bear the stamp of per
manency ; things which are because they cannot fail
to be ; things which exist because non-existence is
an impossibility ; whereas ceremonies, outward forms,
institutions which have beginnings, changes and end,
and mere outward arrangements and incidents of
any kind, which are the result of specific and positive
enactment, are temporary and unsettled in their na-
ture and are short in their duration. And therefore,
it will not be surprising, if there are many things
which will not be noticed in what follows ; and sim-
ply because they fall out of the natural line of our
remarks, and receive their appropriate attention in
other connections and with other methods of treat-
ment.

9. — The work which I have undertaken is de-

ABSOLUTE RELIGION:

19

signed to be pacific in its spirit, and is not necessarily
controversial. It does not at all follow, because a
writer deals with a controverted subject, that his dis-
cussion of such a subject must necessarily be harsh
and controversial in its spirit or aspect. In what I
have to say, I shall make but little reference to names
and persons, and parties. I deal with principles
rather than with men. And it is not beyond my
hope that the truth will be found, and that charity
will be unbroken.

CHAPTER II.

The Personality of God.

I. — God exists. The existence of God is a doc-
trine of the Absolute Religion. It is true there are
said to be Atheists. Perhaps there may be individ-
uals, not very many in number, to whom that name
of error and sadness may apply. As long as great
perversions of the human mind are possible, varying
from the numerous forms of temporary disturbance
to partial or total insanity, it is not unphilosophical
to suppose that atheism, in the case of a few indi-
viduals is a possibility. But I know not that there
are atheistic communities or peoples. Humanity,
into which we are to search for the development of
principles, is represented by masses. The masses of
mankind, as they are found associated in large socie-
ties and communities, have never rejected the idea
of a God. No historian, from the days of Herodotus
and Thucydides, has furnished us the records of an

THE PERSONALITY OE GOD. 2I

atheistic nation. We are justified therefore in ta-
king the position, that the idea of a God belongs to
humanity. As a product of intellectualism, it finds
its origin in part in processes of reasoning founded
on the perceptions, but has a still closer alliance with
the intuitions ; and the Being whom it reveals com-
mands by a law of our nature, the reverential and
loving homage of the heart. So clearly is the doc-
trine of God's existence inscribed upon the works of
outward nature, as they are interpreted by the hu-
man intellect, so strongly is this doctrine affirmed
by the interior convictions and intuitions, and so
necessary is it in response to the yearnings of the
human heart, that I cannot feel the necessity of en-
tering into argument in relation to it. I take it for
granted.

2. — But there is a matter, connected with the di-
vine existence, which cannot well be omitted, and
which is of great importance. I refer to the
doctrine of the Personality of God. Various circum-
stances have brought this question into prominence,
and justify giving attention to it. Within a few
years no small number of writers of acknowledged
learning and ability have greatly disturbed the tra-
ditional belief as well as the religious hopes and con-
solations of a large portion of the Christian world,
by affirming and attempting to prove the imperson-

22 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

ality of the Divine Being. In accordance with our
plan of inquiry we shall endeavor to show, that the
Personality of God is taught by the absolute method ;
and that the teachings of the Absolute Religion, in
this particular as well as in others of a fundamentally
religious nature, are in harmony with the Christian
doctrine.

3. — It cannot well be doubted, that the person-
ality of God is one of the doctrines contained in the
teachings of Christ. It is difficult to see how he
could address God as his Father, and in terms im-
plying the greatest veneration and love, without be-
lieving in the Personality of God.

When, in the trials and sorrows of the Cross, he
prayed, " Father forgive them for they know not
what they do ;'' and when in the final agony of his
spirit he said, " my God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me," it cannot well be supposed that he
believed he was praying to an abstraction, or to a
spiritual generalization, or a great undefined princi-
ple of life, instead of a percipient Being, who in the
mental or spiritual sense had ears to hear, and a
heart to feel. We cannot doubt, that the careful
readers of the New Testament, in view of what is
there said having a bearing upon the subject now
before us, fully and earnestly accept the idea, as the
only one which can be reasonably entertained, that

THE PERSONALITY OF GOD. 23

Jesus believed in the divine personality. This won-
derful Being, of whom we shall have occasion to
speak more fully hereafter, had a heart that wor-
shipped. His intellectual powers, which are some-
times overshadowed and concealed by the manifes-
tations of his great goodness, revealed and identi-
fied the object of his worship ; and his loving heart,
which added emotion to perception, accepted the
revelation and yielded its homage. But affirm that
God is not a personal being, only an underlying
principle or causative force which permeates all ex-
istences and develops itself in all the forms of ex-
istence, without the intelligence and responsibility
which are implied in personality and only by means
of fixed and inexorable law, and from that moment
it is intuitionally evident, that there is no revela-
tion of an object of worship because no such object
exists. And worship itself, which is so obviously
one of the leading characteristics of the inward life
of Christ, necessarily ceases, because there is no ob-
ject to which it can attach itself.

4. — But philosophy, or something which goes
under that great though often perverted name, has
in these later times taken a different view. Those
who are acquainted with the speculations and sug-
gestions on this subject, associated, more or less dis-
tinctly with the names of Helvetius, Diderot, Con-

24 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

dorcet, D'Alembert, Hume, Gibbon, Fichte, Hegel,
Compte, Herbert Spencer, Mills, Strauss, Feuerbach
and others, know well how confidently God has
been announced as a principle of activity and causa-
tion, but without the recognized attribute of a per-
son ; in other words as a great spiritual or psychical
energy, pervading all things that exist, and holding
a fixed and necessary relation to results, but with-
out a distinct and available responsibility, and with-
out even knowing or having any interest in know-
ing what the results of its own activity shall be. It
is painful to know how widely such speculations
have affected the thoughts and feelings of men.
But this doctrine of God, which analyzed to its re-
sults is practically the annihilation of God, is a very
different thing from the simple, sublime, and truly
philosophic idea of God, which is justly understood
as holding a place in the doctrines of Christ.

The God of the Bible, from the earliest to the
latest portion of its announcements is a personal
God. All that is said of God in that great treasury
of thought, including the personal teachings ol
Christ, with all its affirmations of his eternity and
universality, recognizes and emphasizes the great
and essential fact of his personality.

And we cannot hesitate in saying, that a true
philosophy, when applied to the doctrines of reli-

THE PERSONALITY OF GOD. 2$

gion, in other words that the Absolute Religion, or
Religion developed in the highest and truest hu-
man thought and feeling, is on the side of the bibli-
cal teachings.

5. — And let us now look at the subject in a little
different aspect, with a view as briefly as possible,
to bring it to the test of facts and reason. Before we
can either affirm or deny the personality of God, we
must first make personality itself, separate from the
being to whom it attaches and of whom it is predi-
cated, the subject of our thought. It is at this point
that we detect what seems to us the beginning of a
great error.

Personality is not merely a name ; nor is it merely
an idea. In order to know fully what it is, we must
go back from the name to the idea ; and from the
idea or thought to the fact or truth which the idea
represents. The name is merely an aid to the
thought ; an auxiliary or help in the use of the
thought. The thought or idea of personality, which
arises necessarily in the mind under the appropriate
circumstances-of its origin, is justly regarded as a
simple or elementary idea ; and as such it may be
admitted that it is not susceptible of that logical
process which is known as a definition. And yet
not being what Mr. Locke would call an illusive or
chimerical idea, but one harmonizing with the truth
2

26 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

of things, it involves and affirms to our interior con-
victions and belief the fact or verity of the thing to
which it relates. And hence, in connection with the
necessary laws of mental action, we have a basis, and
we cannot get it in any other way, for affirming the
fact of personality. We say for instance in relation
to ourselves and say it without hesitation that we
are personal beings. And when we thus come to
personality itself, in distinction from the idea of it ;
when we reach the verity or reality of the fact in
distinction from its intellectual representation, if it
should happen that definitions in the usual logical
form fail to make it more clearly known, on account
of its interior and elementary nature, it is still both
clear in itself as a matter of internal and intuitional
revelation, and we can also obtain to some extent
additional knowledge of what it is by the indirect
process of indicating what it is not.

For instance, personality, in distinction from the
idea or intellectual representation of personality, and
considered as a fact or verity actually existing and
of which it can be affirmed that it is, is not identical
with existence, nor is it identical with knowledge,
nor with power, nor with activity, nor with expan-
sion. It may have its important relations with any
or all of them ; but it requires to be kept distinct,
both in its idea through which it is represented to

THE PERSONALITY OF GOD. 27

us, and also in its fact or realization. A Being, sep-
arate in the mere fact of existence from other beings,
who has actually powers of perception and affection,
and who can not only know and judge and feel, but
has the volitional power which can carry his judg-
ments and feelings to their appropriate issues, has
necessarily a personality, whether his susceptibilities
of knowledge be greater or less, or whether the mere
extent or expansion of his existence be greater or
less, or whether he comes within the limits of our
comprehension or not. The convictions of the hu-
man mind, arising by their own necessary laws of
being, require us in such a case to affirm the fact or
realization of personality, and enable us to say with-
out any misgivings, that we have before us a per-
sonal being. We have not merely the idea of per-
sonality, which is a matter of interior or subjective
experience and nothing more ; but we have before
us the fact of personality, in its outward or objective
realization.

6. — With this view of the matter before us, and
on such fundamental principles, we proceed to af-
firm that God is a personal being. The doctrine
that God is an impersonal being, probably owes its
origin in part to a mistake in the philosophical ele-
ments involved in the doctrine of personality, and
in part to the fact, that God is without limits. As

28 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

we have been in the habit of ascribing personality
to beings who, in having form, are subject to the
limitations of form, we easily fall into the habit of
associating personality with such limitations, and at
last are apt to adopt the conclusion, that where
there are no limits, no well-defined boundaries of
existence constituting a form, there can be no per-
sonality. Now it must be admitted, that in the ex-
tent or expansion of his being, God is without lim-
its; but it does not at all follow that God, because
he transcends the limitations of the human senses,
and is not the subject of material measurement or
any other measurement, is therefore not a personal
God. The question of personality does not turn
upon mere extent or expansion of being, whether
physically or even psychically considered, but rath-
er upon the traits or characteristics of being. In
considering the subject of God's personality, it is a
proper inquiry, whether he possesses intelligence
which is cognizant of the fact of his own existence
and power ; whether he has the capability of know-
ing and affirming the fixed relation of himself, both
in perception and action, to that interior law of rec-
titude which is also a part of his being ; whether he
possesses a volitional power correspondent to the
powers of perception and the claims of moral obli-
gation ? It is in the answer to such questions as

THE PERSONALITY OF GOD. 29

these, that we find the basis of personality consider-
ed as a fact or realization. And if the answer is in
the affirmative, then God most evidently possesses
all the requisites of personality, and stands forth be-
fore the universe, not merely as a blind and unintel-
ligent principle of movement, but as a personal God,
capable of intelligent design and action, endowed
with responsibility both to himself and to all beings
that are dependent on him, and entitled, in the case
of those who are dependent, to obedience and hom-
age.

7. — And it is proper to say here, as an indirect
confirmation of our position, that humanity de-
mands a God who can thus be recognized and wor-
shipped. The instinct of reverence and homage,
which evidently pervades the human heart, so much
so that it has found its place as an attribute of hu-
manity in all lands and all ages, requires, and cannot
be satisfied with anything short of a personal God.
In the view of the great masses of men, to deny the
personality of God, is, to all practical purposes and
results, much the same, as we have already intima-
-ted as to deny the existence of God. So that we
run no hazard in saying, that a personal God is one
of the great religious necessities of humanity. Re-
ligion is the interior and domestic tie, which makes
the united family of the finite and the Infinite.

30 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

And without a Being, who is not only supreme in
his attributes, but who is approachable, and can be
addressed and confided in, on the basis furnished by
a deific personality, the human race is necessarily
left in the condition of a bewildered and sorrowing
orphanage.

8. — And we may add that the opposite doctrine
that which denies God's personality, seems to us to
be full of danger in other respects. It is not only
the abnegation of religion, but of practical morality.
The doctrine of impersonality, admitting that it some-
times comes before us with learned and imposing
pretensions, will be found, if allowed to go unques-
tioned, to be attended not only with the rupture of
God and man, but of man and his fellow-man. It is
a doctrine which not only strikes boldly at the re-
ligious intuitions of the great heart of humanity, but
is an inlet, through its want of practical power, to
hostility, fraud, cruelty, and all varieties of crime.
No theory of practical morals has ever been con-
structed on the basis of the impersonality of God,
which is available against the mighty evils that con-
tinually imperil man's social condition. The auda-
city of wrong and crime is not frightened by an ab-
straction. Nor is it much afraid of a positive princi-
ple of life, which has no self-regulated thought and
volition. If it were possible for impersonality to

THE PERSONALITY OF GOD. oX

leave us a God at all, which it is not, it would be a
God with no eyes to see, and no cars to hear, and
no hands to handle, and no head to think, and no
heart to feel, and no will to execute ; — a God, if any
one should object to the material form of the expres-
sions, with nothing which our spiritual eyes could
see, or our spiritual ears could hear, or our hearts'
necessities could appeal to ; — a God, in any light in
which it is possible to consider him, without a voice
to cheer us in our efforts to do right, and without a
hand to help us against the dangers which would
certainly assail and overwhelm us.

CHAPTER III.

God as Life.

I. — In subjecting the doctrines of Religion to the
estimate of the Absolute, and in thus bringing them
to the test of fundamental reason, so that the reli-
gious announcement or doctrine, whatever it may be,
shall be found identical with the eternal truth or
otherwise, it will be necessary to say something of
life as an ultimate and necessary principle, and to
affirm and verify its identity with God. Every one
knows how common a thing it is to speak of God,
not only as great and independent in himself, but as
sustaining a causative relation, and as being the pri
mal source and living principle or life of all things.
But God could not be the source or life of other
things without having life in himself. God is Life.

And the question naturally arises in the inquiring
mind what Life is ? In answering this question, it is
admitted that we may not be able, in consequence
of its ultimate and primary position, to say what life
is, in itself considered : but it will aid much in giving

GOD AS LIFE. 33

clearness to our conceptions, if we proceed to give
concisely but distinctly some of its marks or charac-
teristics.

I. — One of the marks or characteristics of Life, in
its primary or ultimate sense, in distinction from
anything of a subordinate or secondary nature which
may sometimes bear that name, is, that it is without
beginning. If the Life, meaning by the term what
may be conveniently designated as the true or essen-
tial Life, could not be said to exist without a begin-
ning, then it would be true, that there was a time,
(namely, the time antecedent to its beginning,) when
it had no existence : a doctrine, which would leave
the universe for unnumbered ages without any life-
giving principle. It is hardly necessary to say that
this is a view which is inadmissible. And besides,
if there was a time when the Essential Life did not
exist, and afterwards a time when it began to exist,
then, inasmuch as not having existed at first it could
not have created itself, it must have been brought
into being by another Life antecedent to it in exist-
ence. And if there was another principle of Life
antecedent to it in existence, which was without be-
ginning and had also by means of its higher and
broader nature the power of developing existence in
other forms, then that antecedent life was, and is,
the Essential Life. Therefore it is reasonable to say
2*

34

ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

that one of the marks or characteristics of Life, in
the true and higher sense of that term, is, that it is
without beginning.

2. — Another mark or characteristic of Life, in the
higher or essential sense, is, that it is eternal. Eter-
nity, which has reference to termination as well as
commencement, and excludes both, is without begin-
ning and also without end. The Essential Life is
eternal. And it is so because it is without begin-
ning. That which exists -without beginning to exist,
has the reason or ground of existence in itself; and,
therefore, having life in itself and of itself, there is no
reason why it should die. The fact of existence,
with no reason of existence but what is found in
itself, obviously involves the idea of eternity of exist-
ence. Being what it is, and with adequate reasons
for thus being, and without any dependence for its
existence on any thing outside of itself, it necessarily
continues to be what it is. Continuance is the oppo-
site of cessation. The Essential Life, therefore is
eternal.

3. — Another and third characteristic of the great
living principle which we are considering, is that
it is universal. If the principle of Life is limited,
then, place the limitation wherever you may, the
great universe of things, in comparison with which
the restricted or limited universe is as nothing, is

GOD AS LIFE.

35

beyond this limit ; reaching out in all directions in
immensity which is boundless; and this infinitely
wider or true universe is a universe without life,
which is inconceivable. The fixed and necessary
conceptions of the human intellect require life,
wherever there is a capacity of life. A universe
without life is nothing more or less than universal
death. The doctrine of a universe without life is
just as contradictory to the conceptions of the intui-
tive or suggestional intellect of man, (that depart-
ment of our nature which gives us all our primary
or elementary ideas,) as would be the doctrine of a
universe without the attendant conceptions and facts
of space and time. It is on such grounds, stated as
briefly as possible, that we are justified in the asser-
tion, that the Essential Life is universal.

4. — A fourth mark or characteristic is, that it is
a life which in its own interior nature is without
change. Changes spring out of it, since it is that
essential unity of existence out of which comes all
variety. But in itself it is unchangeable. And it is
so, because it is eternal and universal. Being eter-
nal, it cannot limit itself in time ; and being univer-
sal, it cannot limit itself in place. And being thus
commensurate with all place and time, meeting the
wants of every moment of time and of every condi-
tion of things, a change in its own nature, whatever

36 ABSOLUTE RELIGION

may be true of change in its varied manifestations,
becomes an impossibility. It is life now ; and it is
life always. And it is the same life, the same in
its nature and extent, to-day, yesterday, and for-
ever.

5. — Another characteristic of the Essential Life
is, that it never ceases in its action. Activity is a
part of its nature ; it is a principle, which ever goes
out of its subject to its object, and finds the neces-
sary nourishment of its own life in the good it does
to another. To cease to act, therefore, would be to
cease to live. It is true, that it changes its modes
of action ; and this change of mode in action may
be regarded as furnishing the compensation of rest ;
but still, there is properly speaking, no cessation of
activity. And accordingly, in being a" perpetual
life, it is also a perpetual development. Always
one, and yet exhaustless and countless in its diver-
sity ; the endless out-going of the central infinite in
the multiplied and constantly varied manifestations
of the finite.

6. — It is, then, a life which is endless, boundless,
changeless, ceaseless ; the source of all other life,
because it is itself the true life ; and the source also
in. an important sense of all knowledge, because
knowledge is inseparable from Life in its highest

GOD AS LIFE. 37

form ; and yet, Life in its own nature, in many re-
spects, is necessarily and forever unknown.

And now comes a remarkable fact. Such char-
acteristics as have now been described, will apply
equally well to God, and to God only. The charac-
teristics of Life are equally the characteristics of
God. And they justify us in saying, that God has
the true life in himself; that God is not only the
great causative and living principle of all things,
but more concisely and yet truly, that God is Life.

CHAPTER IV.

Identity of Life and Love.

I. — But there is something additional, notwith-
standing the possible limitations of our knowledge
in some important respects, which may help us to a
more interior view of the nature of Life. There is
something within the limits of human experience,
which allies us to the great Source from which we
come, and which may be appealed to in these in-
quiries. The Essential Life, in recognizing itself in
its causative and sustaining form as existing in hu-
manity, and in being thus brought in some degree
within the sphere of human comprehension, and
made the subject of human analysis, reveals itself
as Love. So that in view of the evidences that at-
tend it, we may venture to lay down the proposi-
tion, that Love and Life are essentially the same:
a proposition so wide in its sweep and so fruitful in
its consequences that, while its evidences compel
the acquiescence and homage of the intellect, its

IDENTITY OF' LIFE AND LOVE.

39

tendencies and results, when rightly understood, fill
the heart with joy.

2. — In prosecuting the inquiries of this chapter,
we derive an argument in support of the identity
of Life and Love, in the first place, from the Divine
Nature itself. And such an argument, harmonizing
with the Absolute methods of thought, brings our
conclusions, so far as they have a religious aspect at
all, within the limits of the Absolute Religion. God
is Life: God is Love.

In being inseparable from' all existences, in be-
ing the central causative principle of all existences,
and in harmonizing with all existences, there is no
possible motive or reason why the Divine Life
should not be interested, (the relative position and
responsibilities of all being taken into account,) in
seeking the good, the happiness, and the perfection
of all. Its motive of action cannot turn back upon
itself and seek a causation prior to that which is al-
ready first, because, being infinite itself, it cannot
ascend a higher height, or sound a deeper depth,
than it has in its own nature. And thus standing
central, and at the same time without limitation,
and consequently having no power outside of itself
to excite its fears, or to limit its responsibilities,
what strength of thought or ingenuity of conception
can suggest a motive in the Infinite Mind, which is

40 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

adverse to the universal good. In other words, the
Life of God, in its substance and essentiality, is, and
must be, a Life of Love.

3- — And now let us look at the subject in another
aspect. Love, in distinction from the counterfeits
of love ; we mean that divine love, which " casts out
fear," and which pursues the good of its object for
the sake of the good and not for the sake of reward ;
such love has all the marks or characteristics which
have already been ascribed to the Essential Life.
It was said of Essential Life that it has no beginning.
The same can be said of Love. Looking at love
psychologically, and in one of its most distinguishing
aspects, it may be described as simply benevolent
desire, or the desire of good. And like every other
desire, it involves in its very nature and as a part of
its nature, a tendency to activity and to practical
results. It is essentially a motive power. Now
take the universe as the theatre of inquiry, and say
whether Love, considered as a motive power, has or
can nave, admits . or can admit, of any active and
causative power antecedent to itself. Looking at the
question psychologically, it seems to us that only
three suppositions are possible in the case ; first,
indifference, which is not life, but the negation of
life ; second, the desire of evil, which, if it be admit-
ted as the primal activity, would annihilate God, and

IDENTITY OF LIFE AND LOVE. 41

enthrone Satan ; and third, the desire of good, which
is only another name for Love.

Now apply this analysis to God. If God exists
at all, he exists as Essential Life. As essential life,
He is essential activity ; and that, too, without a be-
ginning of such activity. Forever, and as a part of
his nature, He must have had in himself a motivity
a principle of action. That principle of activity,
could not have been indifference ; for that would be
a contradiction in terms. It could not be the desire
of evil, for that would constitute a satanic Infinite.
On the only remaining supposition, it must have
been the desire of good or love. Love therefore, is,
and, from the nature of the case, must be, the con-
stitutive activity of the universe. And being central
in the infinite nature, we may say of it as we say of
God, it is without beginning ; and, therefore it is,
and must be to that extent, the same with the Es-
sential Life of things.

4. — And again, looking at the subject a little fur-
ther, we need not hesitate to say, that the circum-
stances and intuitions which necessitate the affirma-
tion, that Love is without beginning, involve also
the additional affirmation, that Love is without end-
ing, in other words, it is eternal. And as it has no
beginning, and no ending, and thus covers all time ;
so, looking at it in another aspect, and by means of

42 ABSOLUTE RELIGION,

other processes of thought, such as will easily sug-
gest themselves, we are under the necessity of affirm-
ing further that the principle under consideration is
a principle without limitation ; a principle surmount-
ing the boundaries which might be supposed to stop
its progress, and reaching to every place and every
object within the realms of actual or possible exist-
ence. And this great principle, without beginning
and without end, reaching to all objects and living
in all events, universal by the same necessities which
compel the fact of its eternity, is thus made to stand
forth with the same attributes and the same features
as the Essential Life. So that we are justified in
saying that Life is Love, and Love is Life. And
God, who is the embodiment of life, is the embodi-
ment of love ; and is what He is, whether He is
called God or Life, because He is Love.

5. — These views are the views of the Absolute
Religion ; views which involve the unchangeable
facts and relations of things, and have the sanction
of the highest reason ; and if God had not taught
them in the Scriptures, we should still be held ac-
countable by the light that is within. But the reli-
gion of enlightened reason and the religion of the
Bible are one ; thorough and candid inquiries, enlight-
ened by the spirit of humility and faith, will not fail
to harmonize them. And hence we open the Bible,

IDENTITY OF LIFE AND LOVE. 43

and find that wonderful expression, repeated and
emphasized in its essential meaning in a variety of
forms, " God is Love.'' This great truth, upon
which hinges the destiny of the universe, seems to
have developed itself especially in the bosom of the
apostle John. Without going through long pro-
cesses of reasoning and possibly without any train-
ing in such processes, he nevertheless had the grand
intuitions of the heart, and uttered affirmations,
which God in the soul had taught him. Plato, the
first of Grecian philosophers, could affirm that God
a geometrizes,'' and he uttered a truth, correspond-
ing in depth and comprehension to this wonderful
saying of the humble and loving disciple.

6. — The doctrine that Love is identical with Life,
brings the subject of the Essential Life within the
sphere of human cognitions. It is true that Love,
considered as Life, operates in all space and all time ;
but it is also true that it does this, without being
identical with either. So that it can be said, in ex-
pressions which imperfectly convey the idea, that it
is the life of space without being space, the life of
time without being time ; in other words, a principle
and not an expansion, an elemental activity, and
not an outward, material measurement. And hence
arises both the fact and the possibility of its incar-
nation. The Essential Life, whether called Life or

44 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

Love, is individual as well as universal ; dwelling in
God, and dwelling more or less, in all the creatures
of God who are born into his image. And since the
day when Christ walked in the valley of Nazareth,
and wept in the garden of Gethsemane, it can be said
that the life of God dwells in the soul of man, and
the problem of the Infinite, so far as its most essen-
tial element is concerned, is brought within the field
of human consciousness, and is made the subject of
human affirmation. The holy man, whoever and
wherever he may be, walks in life ; — the same divine
and essential life which dwells in the bosom of the
Infinite. The life of the follower of Christ is the
same in its essence with the life of Christ. There is
a philosophical and substantial foundation for that
wonderful but most true assertion of the apostle Paul,
"I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." The
essential life of Christ was LOVE ;— the cross of Cal-
vary was only its necessary resultant, and its divine
symbol. The cross is Love : and in that view of the
interior and subjective nature of the cross, it stands
as a bright and perpetual reality in the heart of every
Christian.

CHAPTER V.

God as Unity and Duality.

I. — Having given in the preceding chapters some
of the marks or characteristics of Life, and shown its
identity with Love ; and having seen that God is
Life in the highest sense of the term, or what may
conveniently be named Essential Life ; in other
words, that the fact of his existence is a problem of
necessity, that Life is in Him by essence or being,
that He cannot be otherwise than what He is, and
is without beginning and without end ; and having
seen also that God, notwithstanding the objections
that have been so freely made in these later times,
is a Personality, and is susceptible of being recog-
nized and approached as such; we are now prepared
to go a step further, and to say in the light both of
the Absolute Religion and the Scriptures, that God,
the great fact and mystery of the universe, is at the
same moment and by the necessities of existence,
Unity, Duality, and Trinity.

2. — It may be said, however, that neither of

46 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

these great expressions standing alone, pregnant as
they are with a deep and divine meaning, can con-
vey to us the full idea of that wonderful being whom
we call God. But taken in connection with each
other and with Personality as the basis of their ap-
plication, they open views of the Infinite, which the
exploration of ages would not fully satisfy. We
shall treat of them in the order in which they have
been named.

Of the first affirmation, namely, the Unity of the
divine Nature, we shall have but little comparatively
to say, because it is a subject on which much has
been ably written, and is one which to thinking and
philosophic minds is but little short of self-evident.
The argument on the subject is commonly and very
justly drawn from the evidences of oneness of design
in the multiplied objects of creation.

3. — There is a foundation for the argument from
creation, because creation implies the fact of a crea-
tor, and because, looking at these objects in the
light of their logical relation, creation does not con-
tain anything which did not antecedently exist in
the ideas of the creating Mind, so that creation, ex-
isting in the universe of objects around us, may justly
be regarded as the out-going, the reflex, or if it be
preferred, the shadows of the Infinite. And accord-
ingly what God is in the eternal principles of his

GOD AS UNITY AND DUALITY.

47

nature, including his Unity, is written not merely in
the messages of Prophets and Apostles, but in his
out-goings, in the emanations of Himself which ex-
ist in the things that are made, in the great robe of
created forms and life which hangs as a garment
around the brightness of his essential being. And
there, as we read in accordance with the laws of our
mental beings the multiplied facts of emanated or
created existence, which are expressions of the one-
ness of thought and plan that lie hidden in the
Source or Centre from which they come, our convic-
tions become harmonized and consolidated in a par-
ticular direction ; and at last it is impossible for us
to doubt the Unity of that great Creative Centre.
We cannot dwell, nor do we feel it to be necessary,
upon the specific processes of thought by which this
is done. Nevertheless, Unity is the first word in
the divine alphabet ; and Nature, speaking in her
silent voices, and writing her record in the book of
the Absolute Religion, harmonizes with the Scrip-
tures in saying, God is ONE God.

4. — But this is not the only or the final word in
the great facts of God's existence. We proceed
therefore to say, without however, confidently ex-
pecting an equal unanimity of opinion in regard to
it, that the Divine Nature is dual, or two-fold, at the
same time that it is one. This great mystery in the

48

ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

nature of the Divine Being is rendered possible by
the great fact of Personality, which has this pecu-
liarity, that, while it necessarily implies and in-
cludes existence, it may be regarded as something
more than existence, because it is a fixed and dis-
criminated modification of existence. The unity is
in the existence ; the duality which attaches to the
same existence, and can never yield its claim to it,
reveals itself in that real and indestructible modifi-
cation of existence — that elemental fact of the uni-
verse, not easily explained, but which can never be
ignored,— called Personality. It is upon this basis
that the Absolute Religion, which cannot interpret
itself independently of existing facts, harmonizes
with the Scriptures in breaking up the desolateness
of Unity and proclaiming the two-foldness or duality
of the Divine Nature. And if we will but open our
eyes, so significant are the facts that have relation
to it, we cannot fail to see at least some evidences
of it.

5. — Some of the facts upon which our conclusions
are founded are these : In every form or kind of
existence which comes fully within the limits of
human knowledge, we find that each form, while it
is discriminated from every other form, reveals within
the prescribed limits of its own existence the won-
derful combination of unity of nature with a two-

GOD . / S UNIT Y AND D UALIT Y. ^

foldncss or duality in the constitution of that nature.
Take our common humanity as an example. No
one can well deny that humanity is one in nature or
being, while at the same time, without abrogating in
any degree its unity and identity of nature, it is
dualistic in personality. Man is not woman and
woman is not man, and yet neither man nor woman
is out of the limits of humanity. They stand re
vealed, to the comprehension of all true and candid
judgment, forever one in the essential identicalness
of being or nature, and yet forever discriminated by
facts and relations which make them two in one.
And our argument is, that God, in revealing this
great fact in everything that is made, has revealed,
in connection with the primal and essential unity in
his own existence, the additional fact of duality. In
other words, God is both Fatherhood and Mother-
hood.

To the mind impelled by the laws of its own
being, that intuitionally accepts the great fact of
Causation, and can read the inherent nature of the
cause in the facts that flow from it, this, I think, is
the inevitable conclusion. And from the eternal
Fatherhood and Motherhood, furnishing, in their co-
existent and co-operative duality, the only conceiva-
ble basis of such a result, all things proceed.

6. — But is there anything in the Scriptures, any-

50 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

thing in the common and generally accepted forms
of religious thought and feeling which harmonizes
with this view? It may, perhaps, be admitted that
the Scriptures are not very full or very explicit on
this subject, and yet there are some things that favor
what has been said. It is worthy of notice, that in
the very earliest part of the Bible there are expres-
sions which clearly intimate a plurality, not, indeed,
in the essential nature, but in the personalities of the
Godhead. The Hebrew word ELOHIM, which often
occurs as the name of the Supreme Being, and which
is translated God, is in the plural form. In the ac-
count which is given in the first, third, and eleventh
chapters of Genesis of God's early doings, he is
represented as conversing with another, and in such
a way as to convey the idea of more than one divine
personality. It is a part of this early history that
God made man in his own image ; and yet it seems
to be obvious from what follows that the man who
was thus created contained in himself a combination
of male and female elements, which either consti-
tuted, or was destined subsequently to constitute, a
duality of persons. And it may be remarked in this
connection that the intermingling of the plural pro-
nouns us and our with the singular pronouns he and
his, when God himself is the subject of discourse, as
in Genesis i. : 26, 27, may be regarded as natural or

GOD IS UNI TY AND D UA LI TV. 51

at least explainable, on the supposition of a plurality
of persons; but not otherwise.

7. — In the book of Proverbs, the authorship of
which is generally, and probably with justice, ascri-
bed to Solomon, the second Personality, as it is
sometimes called by writers, or that personality
which indicates the maternal element and power of
the Godhead, is understood by many commentators,
especially those of a deeply intuitive and devout cast
of mind, to be announced under the name of Wis-
dom, called in the Greek Septuagint translation, SO-
PHIA. " Wisdom," or the " Divine Sophia,'' is rep-
resented in the eighth chapter of the book, as lifting
up her voice, as standing in the top of high places,
as crying aloud at the entrance of the city gates.
The character of the language is so remarkable in
some parts of the chapter, that it is certainly difficult
to explain it on the ground merely of figurative
forms of expression. " By me," says Wisdom,
" kings reign and princes decree justice. By me
princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the
earth/' And again, in language which reminds one
of what is said of the Wisdom or Logos in John's
gospel, " The Lord possessed me in the beginning
of his ways, before the works of old." And again,
" There I was by him as one brought up with him ;

52 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before
him." Prov. 8: 15, 16, 23, 30.

I am aware that different and somewhat con-
flicting interpretations have been given by learned
men to this portion of Proverbs. The reader who
wishes to go into a minute examination of it, which
our limits and the pressure of numerous topics will
not permit us to do, will find valuable aids in the
15th volume of the Bibliotheca Sacra, in a very able
and exhaustive article, in support of the position
that Wisdom in these passages is a divine Personal-
ity, by Professor Barrows, of Andover.

We find evidence also, that the doctrine of a du-
ality in the Godhead, and of a Wisdom or Maternal
principle, existed widely among the Jews, from vari-
ous passages in that portion of the Jewish writings
which are regarded by the Protestants as apocryphal.
In the apocryphal book, entitled the Wisdom of
Solomon, written about one hundred years before
Christ, and in the Greek language, the SOPHIA or
Wisdom is repeatedly introduced, and in such a way
as to indicate personality. In the 9th chapter, 4th
verse, it is said, " Give me the SOPHIA [or Wisdom]
which sitteth by thy throne" At the ninth verse, she
is represented as being present with God when he
made the world. And I think it is worthy of notice,
that in the 1st and 2d verses of the 9th chapter, So-

GOD IS UNITY AND DC/A II TV. 53

phia or Wisdom is used as a parallel expression, and
as synonymous with Logos. It is the same in the
12th verse of the 16th chapter. Similar passages,
and which have been understood, to some extent, as
indicating a Motherhood or maternal personality in
the Divine Nature, are found also in the apocry-
phal book, entitled, the Wisdom of the Son of Si-
rach.

9. — In the Jewish Cabala, or traditional script-
ural commentary, which began to be collected some
years before the coming of Christ, there are eviden-
ces of such a belief. Mrs. Child, in a work entitled
" The Progress of Religious Ideas,'' has made refer-
ence to this fact in a passage near the commence-
ment of her second volume. " According to the
cabalistic doctrine," she says, " God was pure, un-
created light, existing by the necessity of its own
nature, filling the immensity of space, and contain-
ing within itself the principle of life and motion.
The souls of all beings were portions of Him, and
had existed in Him. All forms of being were mere-
ly manifestations of his eternal, indwelling ideas.
The Wisdom of the Eternal they supposed to be a
feminine deity, whom they called SOPHIA."

10. — The most satisfactory announcement, how-
ever, on this deeply interesting subject, is that which
occurs in the generally recognized Scriptures ; and

54 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

is to be found in the first chapter of John's Gospel.
To understand its full force, we must keep in mind,
what I think a careful and critical examination will
fully justify, the identity of the Logos and the Sophia.
" In the beginning was the Logos or Word ; and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God." ■ In
other words ; God, the great positive principle of
the universe, the divine Personality, which is char-
acterized especially by the attributes of power and
causation, existed in the beginning, and as the ante-
cedent of all created things. But He had a com-
panion ; He did not exist alone. The Word or Lo-
gos, the Wisdom or Sophia, different expressions
for the same principle of Eternal Life, was with Him.
And the Logos was God ; not only with God, but
was God.

ii. — An Infinite Love, existing as a positive per-
sonality, implies and requires, as the complement to
its own nature, a correspondent existence, receptive of
whatever it is able to communicate ; in other words,
an Infinite Beloved. On no other supposition can
we understand how the wants of its affectional na-
ture, for we cannot suppose that God is destitute of
such a nature, can be met. The personality of the
infinite Love, which is characterized by the attributes
of causation and power, would fail in the great pur-
poses of being, and thus would essentially destroy

GOD IS UNIT Y A ND DUAIITY. 55

itself, if — speaking after the imperfect manner of
men — it were not enfolded in the arms of the Eter-
nal Wisdom, the Logos, the Sophia. Such, in the
somewhat mystic words of the Apostle John, words
liable, perhaps, to be misunderstood or perverted,
but nevertheless significant of a truth of heavenly
beauty, is the announcement of the infinite Pater-
nit)' and the Infinite Motherhood.

Undoubtedly the language of John, like every-
thing else that takes the imperfect form of words, is
susceptible of criticism. We are aware there are
those who are of opinion that the expressions he
employs can be explained on the ground that the
Logos is the name of an attribute merely, and not
of a personality. But it must be admitted, I think,
especially when all the facts brought to notice in the
various passages are carefully compared, that such
an explanation is not the most natural and obvious
one.

12. — The thought, which finds its expression in
the fact of celestial maternity, makes its appearance
in other quarters. The word Logos, as applicable
to God, and used in a way to indicate, in the opinion
of many, a divine personality, is found in the writ-
ings of Philo of Alexandria, a learned Jew, who
wrote a number of works in Greek previous to the
time of John. According to a statement to be

56 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

found in the Critical Greek Testament of Dr. Alford,
Philo identifies the Logos with the Sophia, using the
terms as convertible ; a circumstance of a good deal
of interest in connection with the history of the use
of these terms. It is worthy of remark, also, that
the Logos, as the Eternal Reason, and spoken of in
such a way as to imply, if not directly affirm, person-
ality, has a place in the writings of Plato. It is not
necessary to suppose, however, that John, who
leaned on Jesus' bosom, and learned sympathetic-
ally, as well as in other forms of instruction, the
great truths that had their lodgement there, derived
his views, as some have conjectured, from either
Plato or Philo. He had other and higher sources of
knowledge. Nor is it necessary to suppose with Dr.
Adam Clarke on the other hand, although there are
some facts which look in that direction, that Plato
derived his knowledge on this subject, to whatever
extent it may have existed, either directly or in-
directly from the Jews. There is reason to believe
that many of the leading philosophers of Greece,
including Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras and Zeno in
the number, were true and earnest seekers after
moral and religious truth. And it is true of all
men in all ages of the world — not an accident but
an eternal principle — that they who seek in sim-
plicity and sincerity of spirit shall not fail to find,

GOD IS UNITY AND DUALITY. 57

Scholars well understand, and perhaps more fully
so at the present time than at any antecedent
period, that there are rtiany thoughts and sugges-
tions in the doctrines and writings of Socrates and
Plato, in particular, which harmonize well with the
doctrines of the Scriptures. The same infinite Mind,
which has never ignored its children in any coun-
try or in any age, may have been the source of
knowledge in both cases.

13. — The doctrine under consideration makes its
appearance from time to time subsequently to the
time of Christ and his immediate successors. It is
found for instance, in the writings of the learned
Valentinus, who lived in the second century, a Jew
by birth, but educated in Alexandria, and subse-
quently resident in Rome. He regarded the Su-
preme Being, in the first or earliest aspect in which
he presents himself, as a great Primal Essence, a
sort of unfathomable Abyss of Existence, an im-
measurable ocean of life. His vast primal Existence
cither gradually develops itself, or manifests itself
connaturally and from the beginning, as Aeons or
Powers, which, as they were far removed according
to Neander, " from abstract notional attributes,"
were probably regarded by Valentinus in the light
of Personalities. And these appear to be repre-
sented as complements or correspondences to each

3*

53

ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

other, namely, as Positive or Causative on the one
hand, and as Receptive on the other. He speaks
of the Aeon Sophia, or the Eternal Wisdom, as
unfolding itself, though at first weakly and imper-
fectly, as the designing or contriving mind of the
universe ; in other words the fashioning or artistic
power. It at last incarnates itself in Christ, who
in his human nature is the highest finite out-birth ;
the beginning or Elder Brother of a great family,
who may be expected to inherit the truth and
purity which, in his human nature, were manifested
in him. The doctrine of Valentinus is undoubtedly
in many respects complex and obscure ; and these
few sentences which give the most favorable aspect,
necessarily impart a very imperfect idea of it. But
all that it is important here to know is, that it
recognizes in the Divine Nature the fact of innate
or connatural powers and personalities, which may
be regarded as distinct and self-conscious in their
manifestations, though having a common basis of
existence, and also as being correspondent and com-
plementary as Positive and Receptive, as Father-
hood and Motherhood.*

14. — Other writers, among whom Heracleon and
Barsanides may be particularly named, who lived

* See Neander's History of the Christian Religion and Church.
Vol. I. Ait on Valentine and his School.

GOD IS UNITY AArD DUALITY.

59

subsequently to Valentinus, may be regarded as
sympathizing with him, and as being essentially of the
same school of religious thought. Not unfrequently
they apply the term SopJiia, or Wisdom (the term
adopted by all these writers from the Greek version
of the striking passage in the bo.ok of Proverbs,
which has already been named), in such a way, and
in such connected epithets, as not only to indicate
the fact of personality, but that divine and eternal
relation of Fatherhood and Motherhood to which
our attention in this chapter is particularly directed.
The doctrine is found in Clement of Alexandria,
who also lived subsequently to Valentinus, and
whose views of religious truth were in other respects
somewhat different.

15. — In coming down to later times we find inti-
mations of the doctrine under consideration in the
writings possessing far more depth and value than
is commonly supposed, of the Mystics and Quietists.
Suso, one of the truly devout and learned German
Mystics of the fourteenth century wrote a work
which he entitled " The Book of Eternal Wisdom."
Suso recognized the common doctrine on the subject,
chat this living and personal principle, the divine
SOPHIA of the Greek mode of expression and the
" La Sagesse Eternelle" as he calls it in the French,
the eternal LOGOS or Wisdom, that dwelt with God

60 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

and was God, bowed itself to the sphere of our err-
ing humanity, and became incarnated in Jesus of
Nazareth. And he expressly teaches, near the close
of the first chapter, that we have a knowledge in its
higher or pre-existent state by means of the knowl-
edge which we have of Christ in his lower or incar-
nate nature. WISDOM speaks, " If thou wouldst
contemplate me," she says " in my ineffable Divinity,
thou must gain a knowledge of me in my suffering
humanity," a declaration which contains volumes of
true knowledge. It is difficult to read the work to
which we have referred, without recognizing in it
the deep conviction on the part of the writer, of a
Personality in the Divine Nature, of the same essen-
tiality of being, with God and of God, and yet enti-
tled to be characterized by that attribute of Mother-
hood, without which the infinite Fatherhood, dear
as it is, becomes a misnomer and a nullity, Suso
lived in the fifteenth century. At an earlier period
in the twelfth century, Richard of the Abbey of
St. Victor in Paris used expressions which involve
the same doctrine.

1 6. At a later period Jacob Boehmen, a Mystic,
though in some respects differing from the school of
Suso and Tauler recognized the doctrine of the Di-
vine Motherhood. We can make nothing else of his
frequent mention of the " Virgin Sophia," whom he

GOD IS UNITY A ND D UA II TY. 6 1

describes in various passages as the " Divine Wis-
dom," as " Eternal," and as a " Living Essentiality."
If we understand him rightly, it was the Sophia, the
Wisdom or Maternal ESSENTIA or Personality of the
Godhead, which incarnated itself in Christ, and which
caused him, in a mother's Spirit though in a male
form, to endure his great sufferings in behalf of a
world which was to be born into a saved and regen-
erated life of him and through him. Not unfre-
quently the language of Christ, when it is allowed to
enter and to leave its true impress on the interiors
of the soul, has the sound and import of a mother's
language : " Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem," he exclaims
with true maternal feeling, "how often would I have
gathered thy children together, even as a hen gath-
ereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would
not!" — Matt. 23: 37. The language which he
utters on the cross is the very language of a loving
mother, who is willing to suffer and even die for her
erring children, if she can thereby bring them back
to their father's house and to truth. " Father, for-
give them, for they know not what they do."

17. A few centuries ago, a sect came into exist-
ence in Holland and England, who took the name
of Familists, or Family of Love. Some years later,
there appeared in England a sect whose views were
similar in some leading respects to those of the Fam-

62 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

ilists, who took the name of Philadelphians. In some
of the writings which originated in these religious
movements, we find evidence of the same tendency
to recognize the Maternal Principle as a true and
distinct Personality in the Godhead. One of these
works is entitled u The Great Crisis/' published
anonymously, but generally ascribed to a pious and
learned man by the name of Roach. References to
the subject which we have been considering, will be
found in (t The Great Crisis,'' on pages 93, 94, and
95. Roach, as is common with all these writers,
speaks of the Motherhood of the Infinite, under the
name of the " Virgin Sophia.'' His language, in the
pages referred to and in other places, is somewhat
obscure, as if he hesitated to give a clear announce-
ment to views which would be likely to meet with
much opposition ; but on a careful examination of
them, there seems to be no doubt as to his meaning.
On page 93 we find the following passage: "That
the doctrine of the Sophia, or Wisdom of God, as
represented in the Virgin nature or Female property,
is no new thing, will appear from what Solomon has
written so peculiarly of her, and from Christ's own
expressions, Luke 7: 35." The passage in Luke is
this : " But Wisdom is justified of all her children.''
Wisdom here, as Roach understands it and explains
it in a brief remark, is the Eternal Mother. And

GOD IS UNITY AND DUALITY. 63

then, speaking of the doctrine farther, he immedi-
ately adds, " Nor has it been without peculiar regard
in the writings, also, of the ancient Fathers, though
by them more generally applied to the Divine Wis-
dom as derivative in the Son (a meaning which is
good and true in its place). But the sense of the
Primitive Church, as taking it in the superior sense
also, [namely as applicable to the Sophia or Pre-ex-
istent Christ] appears from that noted passage of
Tertullian versus Hermogenenem, cap. iv." This
passage, which Roach understands as sustaining his
views, he quotes and comments upon.

18. — As we approach nearer our own times, we
find the same view taken. It differs, it will be no-
ticed, from the generally received view chiefly in go-
ing a step farther and indicating, though of course
very imperfectly, the nature of the relations existing.
The doctrine that the " second person of the Trinity
as it is frequently denominated by writers, sustains
a relation which may properly be expressed by the
term Motherhood, is recognized in the views and
writings of the sect of the United Society of Believ-
ers commonly called Shakers. In the " Summary
View," so called, which is published under the au-
thority of the Society, and contains a brief exposition
of their doctrines, it is said, p. 219, speaking of Ann
Lee, that the imaere and likeness of the Eternal

64 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

Mother was formed in her as the first-born daughter.
And again it is said on the same page, that the " hu-
man tabernacle of Ann Lee," meaning her earthly
body, "was but flesh and blood like those of all
other women ; but it was a chosen vessel, occupied
as an instrument by the Spirit of Christ ; " that is to
say, by the same pure and celestial Spirit which
dwelt in Christ. " It is this Spirit/' it is afterward
said, " which is the image and likeness of the Eternal
Mother r At page 217 it is remarked in relation to
Christ, it was " necessary that the human tabernacle
of Jesus should be created by the immediate opera-
tion of the Eternal Father and Mother."

19. — The doctrine, that the Divine Nature is
dual in its personalities, and that this duality implies
and includes the fact of a divine maternity, is adopt-
ed and advocated by the sect known as Bible Com-
munists. The leading doctrines of this people are
found in a work entitled the Berean ; a work which
is characterized by acuteness of thought and reason-
ing, and by no small share of biblical learning.

" We believe," says the author of this work in
his Preface, in the Duality of the Godhead ; and that
Duality, in our view, is imaged in the twofold per-
sonality of the first man, who was made male and
female, Gen. 1 : 27. The doctrine is brought
out more fully in the chapter on the Divine

GOD IS UNITY AND DUALITY. 6$

Nature. On page 87 are the following expressions :
" For our part, instead of having any repugnance
against the idea that God is a bi-personal Being [that
is, one in essential nature, but distinct and correlative
in dual personalities] we find all our natural prepos-
sessions in its favor. We are quite willing that the
indications of the created universe should be true ;
that woman, as well as man, should have her arche-
type in the primary sphere of existence ; that the
Receptive as well as the Active principle, subordi-
nation as well as power, should have its representa-
tive in the Godhead. And we believe that an un-
sophisticated child would much prefer the family
idea of a dual head over all, a Father and Mother of
the universe, to the conception of a solitary God."

20. — We will only add further, that the Catholic
Church is often regarded, with how much reason we
will not undertake to say, as embodying the idea of
the Motherhood element which exists in the Infi-
nite, in its recognition of the holy or dcific nature
of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and in the high hon-
ors, and even worship, which it is understood to
render to her. In the paintings of the great mas-
ters, which often adorn the Catholic churches, and
particularly the Cathedrals, the admiring and tearful
eye of the worshipper often rests with the deepest
reverence and hope upon that benign countenance,

66 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

which becomes to the eye of faith the imperfect and
yet beautiful symbol of the great and overshadow-
ing Maternity, which exists innate and glorious in
the Godhead.

21. — Such appears to be the new and dawning
thought of the world on this important subject ; at
first but dimly appearing in the Scriptures ; but in
accordance with the promise of the great Teacher,
who said, " when the Spirit of truth is come he will
guide you into all truth/' revealed at last with clear-
er and ever-increasing distinctness by the Holy
Spirit, or Spirit of God, or Spirit of universal truth
and love, finding its way into and operating intelli-
gently and effectively in the hearts of humble and
sincere men ; and thus unfolding in these latter
days the great and eternal facts which harmonize
with and which sustain the progress of humanity.

It is with interest therefore, in opening the vol-
umes of a remarkable man, the late Theodore Par-
ker, who accepted the doctrines of the Absolute Re-
ligion while he demurred vigorously to some of the
positions of dogmatic theology, that we find him
not only announcing God as the primal, unific, and
causative principle of things, but also defending the
truth, hardly less essential and important, of the
Personality of God, and announcing still further,

GOD IS UNITY AND DUALITY. 67

with a boldness and clearness indicative of the
strength of his convictions, the duality of the Di-
vine Nature as being Motherhood as well as Fath-
erhood.

CHAPTER VI.
The Son of God.

I. — The duality of the Divine Existence, involv-
ing- the fact of Fatherhood and Motherhood, neces-
sitates that further unfoldment of being, which is
implied in, and is not inappropriately expressed by,
the word Trinity. Around this grand and historic
word, which alternately attracts and repels by the
greatness of the mystery involved in it, the world's
thought and the world's controversy have for ages
revolved. As it is not our object, however, to dis-
cuss religious truths in the precisions of their estab-
lished dogmatic forms, but rather as they present
themselves in their necessary facts and relations to
the enlighted view of the whole human mind, we
leave the Trinity, as one of the generally accepted
methods of expression, to complete and verify itself
by its own logical processes, and in its own time
and way.

2. — But before proceeding further, I think it will
be necessary briefly to say something of a personal

THE SON OF GOD. 69

nature, in order to a proper understanding of my
own position, and as explanatory in part of my own
tendencies of thought. I hope the reader will bear
with me and sympathize, when I say that I am
a believer in, and a lover of the biblical Scrip-
tures. I frankly and joyfully acknowledge, that I
have found in them not only an enlightening, but I
trust something of a positive and renovating power.
At the same time I am obliged to say further, that
under the influence of inward suggestions, which I
will not stop to explain and define, I have thought
it right and felt it a duty, to compare the moral and
religious revelations embodied in the Bible with the
moral and religious thought of different ages and
nations. I wished to ascertain in this way, and
with the aid of the histories of philosophical opin-
ions, the relation of the Scriptures to the moral
wants and the enlightenment of universal humanity.
And in the fulfilment of these desires, I have not
only examined the Scriptures to some extent in the
original languages, but have trodden the soil of Pal-
estine, which may be regarded as a living commen-
tary; and have verified, or attempted to verify, so
far as illustration and verification can now come
from those sources, the Scriptural affirmations in
the birth-place of their origin ; — in Nazareth and
Bethlehem, on the banks of the Jordan, in the sacred

-0 ABSOLUTE RELIGI

places of Jerusalem, in the terrible deserts and on
the rocky summits of Sinai. And not only this : I
have read, as many others have done, the truth of
the declarations of the Bible in the direct as well as
the comparative history of nations, and in the rec-
ords of my own heart. And therefore, without for-
getting the intelligence and the conclusions of oth-
ers, I frankly affirm that the Bible is no fable to
me. I have no hesitancy in saying, that in my
view, subject to the condition of a candid and wise
interpretation, the Bible is the affirmation of the
highest intelligence, and is the eternal ,k Word of
God."

3. — But there is another view, which it would be
unwise and unphilosophical to omit. I remember
also, that God is not only the God of the Bible, but
the God of all nature, and of all history, and of all
things. And so much so that He cannot be sepa-
rated without the denial of the essential elements
of his nature from any thing and every thing which
exists ; but on the contrary is found to be and can-
not possibly be otherwise than universal, unchange-
able, and eternal in all that He is, in all that He
does, and in all that He utters. And it is, there-
fore, I believe, that the word of God in his Reveal-
ed Religion, known as the Bible or Scriptures, and
the word of God in the Absolute Religion, when in-

THE SOX OF GOD. - i

tcrprctcd in the true and divine light of things, are
and must be the same. It is possible that men
may fail to harmonize the two but the harmony ex-

4. — It is well known that theologians, looking
perhaps with the theologic eye, have found a Trin-
ity in the Bible. We do not say that they have
always understood or expressed it rightly; or that
their views, often divergent from each other, are
always entitled to assent. Nevertheless it is the
general testimony of their writings and creeds that
they have succeeded in finding it there ; at least in
the essential nature of the thing. And such is my
own belief. And it is not surprising to me that
God, whose wisdom always adapts itself in its exer-
cise to the existing state of things, communicated
this great truth, in the early periods of the world, in
the dogmatic form and simply as a doctrine and
not as a philosophy. As thus stated, and standing
by itself alone, it is not free from obscurity ; and
there is a class of minds which do not readily accept
it. But the God of the Bible is the God of univer-
sal nature. And it is not strange that in these lat-
ter days, with all the enlightenment of arts and let-
ters and of moral and religious progress, some of the
obscurities of the Bible are explained and reconciled
by the light of the Absolute Religion.

m2 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

5. — To the thoughtful mind it is a natural sug-
gestion, that the duality of the Divine Existence,
written everywhere in the book of nature, necessi-
tates a Trinity. The train of thought in the case is
essentially this. It is not only true, as the apostle
Paul teaches us, but it is a truth which harmonizes
with the nature and position of man who reasons
constantly from effects to causes, that we learn the
things of God from the things that exist. In other
words, the effect in the principles and methods of
its being, is antecedently in the cause. And what
do we find in the effect? In the first place it pre-
sents itself as a duality. But it does not stop there.
We always find that the out-birth of that which in
the order of nature goes before, supplementing and
carrying out the fact of duality, in other words the
added fact which constitutes the Trinity, every-
where manifests itself in the objects of the world
around us. Everywhere there is a duality of exist-
ence, resulting in a reproduction which constitutes
a trinity. But the things which exist, and which
necessarily carry with them the evidence of the
highest wisdom, are but the reflex or the mirror of
the great First Cause from which they came. The
cause holds the effect in its arms and stamps its
image upon it. And thus the duality which in the
objects of nature around us always implies and ne-

THE SON OF GOD. . 73

cessitatcs the fact of a Trinity, reveals in the light
of the relation of effects and causes, the antecedent
but correspondent fact, not only of the duality but
also of the tri-unity of the Infinite.

6. — If we are right therefore in the view which
we take, we must supplement the eternal Fatherhood
and Motherhood by the eternal Son. The eternal
Son, or the Son " eternally proceeding," as it is some-
times theologically expressed, is the great and un
ceasing out-birth of the Divine Duality. That
which being in God, is necessarily in its appropriate
time born out ^/"God, is the Son of God. But the
Son of God is a wide and mighty form of expression
wnich, in order to embrace the whole truth included
in it, may be presented to our notice, first, generi-
cally or in its most general form ; and second, specifi-
cally or in relation to that remarkable manifestation
of the divine in the human, (undoubtedly the most
remarkable fact in human or any other history)
which is known as both Son of God and Son of Man.
7. — Generically, or considered in the whole of its
extent, the trinal out-birth, otherwise called the Son
of God, without which the eternal Fatherhood and
Motherhood could have neither name nor power
nor meaning, is the whole of creation from its lowest
to its highest form. Spoken of in terms suggested
by the analogy of the human form, which in some
4

74 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

respects may be regarded as the physical similitude
and outward portraiture of God, the myriads of ex-
istences which form the lowest stratas or divisions
of beings, constitute the FEET ; the highest develop-
ments and classifications of existence constitute the
head ; and the intermediate grades, all in their ap-
propriate places and fulfilling their appropriate offi-
ces, make out and manifest the completeness and
beauty of this boundless and unceasing out-birth or
generation of positive and separate life.

8. — So that not an insect that floats in the air,
nor a fish that swims in the sea, nor a bird that
sings in the forests, nor a wild beast that roams on
the mountains ; not one is or by any possibility can
be shut out and excluded from the meaning and
the fact of the divine Sonship, considered in this
generic or universal sense. Under that significant
and glorious name in its generic and widest import
are included all possible forms and degrees of being,
whatever may be their distinctive character, which
sustain the relation of effect or createdness to the
great Causative Centre which lies hidden in what
may be called the Dual Infinite. And this Sonship
of universal existence, though it undoubtedly sus-
tains the relation of effect to cause, is nevertheless
so closely and indissolubly interwoven with the Eter-
nal source from which it springs, that it may, in a

THE SON OF GOD.

75

proximate but most important sense, be said of it,
that it is without beginning and without end ; that
no time in its specific measurement is allowed to
mark its commencement and that no time, unless
the same can be said of God himself, can announce
the hour of its termination. It is what theologians,
with a just and significant expression, have some-
times called it, the eternal Sonship, or a Sonship in
eternal procession. In other words, in the two-fold
bosom of the Dual Infinite there exists a Sonship,
which identical in nature but discriminated in per-
sonality, converts two-foldness into tri-foldness, du-
ality into trinity, and of which it can be said in its
objective manifestation it is always being born, and
in the mystery of its subjective existence it is always
in the bosom of its eternal birthplace and always
in readiness to be born.

9. — All living nature then in all the variety of
its forms, being only the out-birth of that which has
existed interiorly and subjectively from eternity, is
the mighty procession of form, feeling and activity
which, in virtue of its birth-place, constitutes the
Son of God. And in this vast complexity of Son-
ship, including all possible degrees and forms and
methods of being, there is not a living thing that is
forgotten, not one that is not overshadowed by the

j 6 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

divine Love. All sheep and oxen, and the cattle
upon a thousand hills, and the young lions of the
forest, and the fishes of the sea, and the birds of the
air, as they could not be born and exist without God,
have a right to be called the children of God. " Are
not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one
of them is forgotten before God," " thou shalt not
muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn," " thou
givest them their meat in due season," — it is such
expressions as these which show the loving heart
of the Infinite.

And little does that man know of the greatness
and boundlessness of God's universal love whose
heart is not touched with the deepest sympathy for
everything that exists, no matter what it is or where
it is. If we are one with God we are one in all we
can do to contribute to the happiness of everything
God has made.

10. — But again and specifically the Sonship, which
constitutes and completes the divine Unity, not
only in Duality but in Trinity, so that we can speak
of the oneness of Eternal Life in the three-foldness
of Personality and relations, the One in Three and
the Three in one, is found in Man. Not man how-
ever, in the first form of life, not the self-centred and
limited Adamic man, (a subject on which we shall
have something explanatory to say in another

THE SON OF GOD.

77

place ;) but man with the experience of the second
or higher birth, which expands the self-centred into
the universal-centred and God-like form of life ; man
standing at the head and as the comprehension and
the perfection of all lower existences; man who
cannot separate his own life and happiness from the
life and happiness of all other beings, man in his
glorious Christhood. This is Sonship in the specific
and higher sense ; the fulfilment of the prayer and
hope of the long expectant ages; the culmination
of humanity in the Son of the virgin Mother.

1 1. — I stand with awe in the presence of this great
out-birth. The true man was born : the effulgent
model and ante-type of the incoming, heavenly hu-
manity ; and becoming the dwelling-place of God, he
embodied the glory of divinity in the humbleness of
the human form ; and in virtue of that which was
within Him, took the name in the specific and more
jjlorious sense of the term of the Son of God. I
shall be pardoned for saying it is my earnest prayer,
that I may understand more and more this great
advent known specifically as the divine Son. I do
not believe that a true philosophy has any sympa-
thy with that perversity of spiritual perception
which turns coldly away from this divine brightness.
The expression which better than any other meets
my thoughts, and which in the comprehension of its

7$ ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

meaning reveals the evidence of its divine origin is,
"God manifest in the flesh." Being not only made
in the similitude of man, but being the possessor of
a man's nature, we do not find him as he is histori-
cally represented, exempt from human weaknesses
and trials, temptations and sorrows. In what sense
therefore, is it possible to speak of him as the mani-
festation of God ? This is a great question. With
a view to the better understanding of it, we leave
the subject here until we shall have considered in
the next chapter the necessity and possibility of a
divine manifestation.

CHAPTER VII.

Necessity and Possibility of a Divine Manifestation.

I. — Religion, considered in its essential nature,
and in the aspect of its great and final result, is and
must be harmony with God. Reason as we may
upon the subject, it will be found in the end, that
it cannot be anything greater, nor anything less, nor
anything different from this. But harmony, admit-
ting there is a slight difference in the import of
the terms, necessarily implies union ; and indeed
might properly be defined as the completion or per-
fection of union ; and in the case of intelligent and
moral beings, it is hardly necessary to say that it is
and must be conscious union.

2. — And now we proceed to say further, that
there cannot be a conscious union, especially one
which rises to the eminent degree which entitles it
to be called harmony, without a knowledge of God.
In other words, in order to this result of harmony
which is the substance of religion, God must make
himself known, must manifest himself. To be con-

80 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

sciously united with God and yet without a knowl-
edge of God is a contradiction in terms, and is a
moral impossibility. And further/if God is not to
be manifested in such a way as to make himself
known, what is the object of his existence? Why
should he exist at all ? The manifestation of God
therefore, in some important respect, so that we can
speak of him intelligently and give him both thought
and affection, may be regarded as a NECESSITY.

3. — So far as this, the Absolute philosophy ex-
presses itself with confidence. And the human
heart, that which in man feels rather than thinks,
but which embodies truth in the instincts of feeling,
confirms the decision. But here comes a difficulty.
Granting that it is necessary in the decisions of the
human intellect, granting that it is necessary to meet
the conscious wants of human feeling, is it a thing
which is possible ? Is it possible for the Infinite to
manifest itself understanding^ to the finite? Or
taking the converse proposition, is it possible for
the finite, in the limitation of its powers, to compre-
hend that which is without limits? In the view of
sound reason it seems to be necessary to answer
these questions in the negative. But it appears to
have escaped very much the thoughts and knowledge
of men, that infinity is not God but only the mode
or manner of his existence, namely, the extent or

DIVINE MANIFESTATION. gl

degree of his existence ; and that we may know God
in the essentiality of his nature, in that which con-
stitutes the primal and deific substance of his being,
although it may be true, and is true, that we cannot
know Him on account of the limitations of our pow-
ers in the fullness of his extent or degree. In other
words, if we cannot know God in his degree or meas-
urement, we may still know him, which is of far
greater importance, in his truth or essence.

4. — But let us look a little further. If infinity is
not God but only the degree or extent of his exist-
ence, the question still remains, — what are we to
understand by God, and what is it which constitutes
the primality and essence of his being ? Do we or
can we find Him in the true and higher sense in his
attributes ? Let us reflect a moment on this impor-
tant question. Take the attribute of knowledge,
even when it is considered in the degree or extent
of infinitude, and is properly denominated Omnisci-
ence, does it make or constitute God ? Sound rea-
son will also be compelled to answer here in the
negative. And again, God is a being of power.
But does the attribute of power, even when joined
in its extent with infinitude and denominated Om-
nipotence, any more than the attribute of omnisci-
ence make or constitute God? And here also we
are compelled to answer, that such cannot possibly
4*

g2 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

be the case. The word attribute itself, which men
agree in using as applicable to and as descriptive in
part of omniscience and omnipotence, implies that
in the order of nature there is and must be a prin-
ciple back of these, a living and pre-eminent primal-
ity which will call knowledge and power into action
and give them and all other attributes their appro-
priate direction and issues. And this principle
which, as we have already seen in a former chapter,
is the essential and eternal life of the divine exist-
ence, and in fact constitutes that existence, is LOVE.
And this interior principle which constitutes the es-
sential nature of God and to which are appended
the attributes that operate as the instruments of its
decrees, involves in itself and as a part of its own
nature, an ultimate motive power which is the basis
of the activity of the universe. If it were otherwise,
in other words if there were a destitution and ab-
sence of such motive power, constituting a state of
things which could properly be described by the
word indifference, then of course all the existing
wonderful activities would cease, and God would be
practically annihilated. And again, if this interior
principle of which we speak were not indifference
but a practical or motive evil principle, then, instead
of God we should have and it could not be other-
wise, an infinite Satan. But the Absolute philoso-

DI VINE MA NIFE S TA TION. 8 3

phy affirms as well as the Bible and in confirmation
of the Bible, not merely that God exists but that
God is Love. And hence it will be found, and all
exhaustive and ultimate researches will prove it to
be so, that every exercise of his omniscience and
omnipotence or other attributes is dictated by be-
neficence.

5. — The manifestation of himself therefore, which
it was necessary for God to make, and which the
wants of an erring- and suffering humanity required,
and which the Absolute Religion aiming as it does
at the establishment of universal harmony impera-
tively demands, was the manifestation of himself in
his essential nature as Love.

The manifestation of the auxiliary incidents or at-
tributes of the Divine Nature, such as knowledge and
power, and especially with the weight and expansion
of infinitude attached to them, when standing alone
and without a manifestation of that interior and es-
sential life which holds them in its hand and guides
them to beneficent issues, was calculated to frighten
and destroy and not to save humanity. But in
what way could that deeper and more interior man-
ifestation of God as Love, which alone could bring
adjustment and peace and hope to men be made ?

The question which now presents itself was, in
some important sense, the great problem of the

g^ ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

ages. And in the first place all enlightened philoso-
phy will agree that it was necessary that it should
be made within the sphere of humanity. In other
words, it was necessary that it should be made in
such a way that man with the limited faculties which
he possesses and with precisely such faculties in kind
as he possesses, should be able to behold, study and
comprehend it.

6. — But something more is necessary than this
general statement. Shall we find the manifestation
of God in his true and essential nature, as some
heathen nations have foolishly thought, in the lower
forms of creation, in birds and reptiles, and even in
inanimate things ? That such an idea should have
existed is indeed an evidence of the wants and crav-
ings of the human heart ; and perhaps it would be
unphilosophical to deny that there is an element of
truth in it, inasmuch as there is something of God
in all the creatures of God, however low they may
be in the scale of being. But the darkened belief
which accepts the manifestation of God in such in-
ferior things, a belief to which the Apostle Paul so
feelingly and pointedly alludes, cannot contribute to
man's elevation; but on the contrary, as appears
from the records of heathen nations, tends greatly
to hold him fast in hopelessness and debasement.
Nor on the other hand, would a manifestation made

DIVINE MANIFESTATION. 85

iii the form of beings above the sphere of humanity,
through forms and faculties not commensurable with
and susceptible of being interpreted by anything
given to man, have been of any more avail. It
might not have tended to debase, but it is not ob-
vious that it could have tended to elevate, because,
being above the reach of the human faculties, it
could not be understood.

There is left, therefore, only the method which
infinite wisdom adopted, that of the incarnation of
the divine in the human form ; the incarnation
of the Son of God ; — " God manifest in the flesh."

7. — And this is a method of manifestation, which
does not merely excite our admiration and gratitude ;
but which, far more than any other that is possible
to be suggested, satisfies our reason. If God is Love,
the manifestation would necessarily be in that
method which would best secure the results at
which love aims. God, therefore, with a condescen-
sion which of itself intimates his true nature, took
upon himself humanity in order that he might be
comprehended by humanity; and that, if he could
not be measured in his infinitude, nor be understood
in the truth and essentiality of his nature through
the incidents of knowledge and power alone, he
might be understood by submitting to be nailed to
the Cross in that which was and is the essential

g5 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

principle of his life ; a principle which gives direction
to knowledge and power, and which stamps its value
on infinitude.

8. But in the realization of this great event, al-
though through the teachings of types and prophe-
cies they had long looked for something of this kind,
men seem to have been greatly perplexed in one
particular. In consequence of the associations
which they had been accustomed to attach to rank
and station, they expected that the descending God,
whose advent the earlier ages had predicted, would
make his appearance with all the pomp and circum-
stance at least which belong to the highest human
station. They looked for a king in the human
and historic sense of the term. But that was not
God's plan. In his view human existence, aside
from the incidents of rank and station, embodies the
evidence of the highest wisdom and goodness. Man,
who was made in the image of God, man in his sim-
ple humanity, unadorned with the incidents which
<nve a fictitious splendor, without a sceptre and with-
out a crown, was the fitting instrumentality in which
God was to make himself known. And therefore
" God manifest in the flesh," was God manifest in
man • — man low in worldly station, with nothing
calculated to arrest attention ; but poor, untitled,
friendless, and unknown. He chose humanity and

DIVINE MANIFESTA TION. 87

not rank ; the thing and not the incidents of the
thing ; humanity, as it were, in its nakedness ; and
thus forever gave a sanction and elevation to man as
man.

CHAPTER VIII.

Christ as the Fulfilment of the Law.

I. — Keeping in mind that we are examining
things, or at least attempting to do so, in their prin-
ciples or philosophical bases, we proceed now to an-
other subject. It is hardly necessary to say that
the thought of the Christian world has always been
directed with peculiar earnestness to the various
events which constitute the life and death of Jesus
Christ. His death, as well as the antecedent events
of his personal history, has a significancy which will
not be likely to be exhausted while there are souls
to be saved. The life of Christ, including its clos-
ing scenes, is often spoken of and regarded as a " ful-
filment of the law." Christ himself foreseeing the
probable termination of his life and its relation as a
whole to all antecedent facts and events, refers to
the subject, Matt. 5 : 17, 18 — " Think not that I am
come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not
come to destroy but to fulfil. For verily I say
unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one

CHRIST AS FULFILMENT OF THE LA IF. go

tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be
fulfilled." In a passage of the prophet Isaiah, ch.
42: 21, which is generally understood to apply to
Christ, it is said " he will magnify the law and make
it honorable." It is often said that we are to look
for the fulfilment of the law in the death of Christ
on the Cross. And yet, when brought to the test
of a philosophical examination, the death of Christ
considered in itself and separate from that which is
the basis or foundation of it, might justly be regard-
ed as coming short of such fulfilment. The death
of Christ in its physical aspects was much like any
other death ; the experience of physical disorgani-
zation and suffering, — probably very great suffering,
— resulting in the separation of the body and the
spirit. Nevertheless, it is in the death of Christ
that we find the key to his character ; that which
interprets the meaning of his antecedent acts ; that
which consolidates and perfects his life ; that which
makes him in a true sense, when we get at that
which underlies his death, the world's Saviour.

2. — In speaking of Christ, in the events and inci-
dents of his life and death as the fulfilment of the
law, it is necessary to understand what meaning and
what limitations we shall attach to Law itself. And
here we arc met by the fact that there are a great
multitude of laws in the universe. Go where we

g0 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

will, we meet with this great regulative influence.
There is nothing high enough or low enough, no
boundaries of time or space, which are beyond the
cognizance and the authority of Law. The philo-
sophic interpreters of their own and the world's
thought on this subject, Cicero, Grotius, Vattel,
Hooker, Montesquieu, and others, agree in the
great doctrine of the universality of Law. And what
is also of great importance, there are different kinds
of law ; laws which are mental and moral as well as
physical ; laws which give stability to thought and
guidance to virtue, as well as those more obvious
laws which sustain and develop material beauty and
strength.

3. — The law which Jesus fulfilled, coming under
the general class of mental or spiritual, is the law
fundamental to all others ; the Primal law, because
it stands first in time as well as first in importance ;
the law, without which God would cease to be God ;
that great law of which we have spoken in a former
chapter, which binds the higher to the lower, the
stronger to the weaker, and we may add, the good
to the evil, in the exercise of all the possibilities of
benevolence, which are involved in the fact of a
higher position and a greater wealth of resources.
In comparison with this law which is known in the
Scriptures as the law of Love, all other laws sink

CHRIST AS FULFILMENT OF THE LA W. 9 1

into insignificance. It is the basis Law of the uni-
verse ; and Christ came not merely to announce it
as a principle but to fulfil it as a fact, in order that
men seeing with their own eyes that Love is ready
to pour out its heart-blood for the good of others,
might understand and know, as they otherwise
could not do, the moral basis on which the universe
stands.

4. — The law of love when carried out to its ap-
propriate issues, constitutes as we have already had
occasion to show, the central life-principle of God
himself. Love is life and wherever it exists, wheth-
er in the Infinite or the finite, it can always be said,
to the full extent of that existence and with a ful-
ness and truth which the world but imperfectly un-
derstands, that God is there. And Christ therefore,
in taking upon himself humanity and in fulfilling
the law in this lower sphere, may be said to have
brought God down to earth. In being lifted upon
the Cross and nailed there in the sight of the world,
and yet in his agony uttering that sublime prayer,
" Father, forgive them, for they know not what they
do," he revealed the truth and greatness of God's
life in his own dying but immortal life; and open-
ing the way and the hope of salvation, plucked hu-
manity from its sorrows and its ruins, and gave ever-
lasting life to men.

92

ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

5. — And here, speaking as we now do, of the
great divine law, that law of Love which is the basis
of all things that exist, it is necessary to keep in
mind the discriminations and relations of ideas, and
to separate things which are apt to be confounded.
Law and Life, which latter is only another name for
Love, are inseparable rather than identical. Law
when rightly estimated, is the eternal announcement
indicating the constitutive form and the mode of ac-
tion ; Love, inseparably connected but not identical,
is the correspondent realization which operates
within the truths and harmonies of law. Law, stand-
ing as the interpreter and the voice of the universe,
is the requisition ; Love is the experience and the
fulfilment of that which is required. In the natural
or logical order, law is the antecedent ; but being an
antecedence of ideas and not of life, of regulative
form rather than of positive and affirmative existence,
it is necessary that Love, which is the power that
gives it vitality, should come and convert it into a
practical principle which renovates and perfects all
things.

6. — And now it seems to me to be philosophically
true, in other words a doctrine of the Absolute Re-
ligion, that the Law, though eternal as God and un-
changeable as God, and speaking with a divine and
universal voice, cannot save us, without that Christ-

CHRIST AS FULFILMENT OF THE LA W. 93

life or Lovc-lifc, which the Law requires, and which
is the Law's fulfilment. To recognize the law, which
is an intellectual act, is important ; to feel the just-
ness of its requisitions in the conscience is important
also as a preliminary preparation ; but to stop in the
recognition and the conscientious conviction, with-
out the possession of the living principle which it
requires, is necessarily to die. And Christ, there-
fore, who embodied this living principle and who in
his essential nature is and ever will be Love, is the
realization or fulfilment of the Law.

On these principles man cannot be saved, if sal-
vation is an inward life, by a mere command, by a
mere authoritative declaration. Salvation, which is
the kingdom of God within us, does not come in
that way. The destiny of man, a destiny which will
always be fulfilled if it is not prevented by his own
personal opposition, is to enter into everlasting life
by becoming a partaker of that life.

7. — Undoubtedly there are many things mistaken
for life which are not life. Repentance is not life
It implies a conviction for sin, but if it stops there
it is not life. Forgiveness to the extent of entire
pardon for all our past sins is not necessarily to be
regarded as life. It implies an exemption from the
suffering which was originally due to the sins which
are blotted out ; but it is not necessarily a principle

94 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

of life. Happiness may be expected to be a result
of life, an incident which is naturally attendant upon
it, but it is difficult, on any analysis which may be
made of it, to affirm that, in itself considered, it is
the living and life-giving principle of the soul. We
enter into life, and the principle of life becomes the
soul's new birth when in the language of Scripture
we die upon the Cross ; in other words, when by
means of inward crucifixion we die to self in all
cases where self-hood becomes selfishness ; and when
we begin to live for the good of others, not only the
good of all mankind but of all existences. In other
words using the terms in the sense in which God
may be supposed to understand them, we live when
we love. Love is life. And anything within us
which is at variance with love is, to that extent, the
absence and the negation of life.

8. — In Christ this life was completed. In Him
the living and life-giving principle of his being, that
which constituted Him the Son of God, was holy love.
So that in Him the law of the universe, that law
which requires us to love God and in loving Him to
love all that He loves, was fulfilled.

CHAPTER IX.

The Second or New Birth.

I. — The doctrine of the regeneration, otherwise
known as the doctrine of the New or Second Birth,
is clearly an announcement of the Scriptures ; and
though especially exposed to doubt and cavil is not
without the acceptance and supports of observation
and philosophical analysis. It is the language of
the great Teacher ; " Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
except a man be born again, he cannot see the king-
dom of God."— John 3:3. " Therefore, if any man
be in Christ," says the Apostle Paul, "he is a new
creature." Looking at the subject analytically and
philosophically and as a part of the Absolute Reli-
gion, the fact of a New or Second Birth admitting
the fact or existence of such a birth, necessarily im-
plies the existence of an antecedent birth, which
may properly be spoken of in the remarks which we
now propose to offer on the First birth. And this
First Birth is to be understood as identical with the
natural birth or the Adamic birth as theologians fre-

q5 absolute religion.

quently name it and which the Scriptures some-
times speak of as the birth of " the flesh."

2.— And this birth or first form of life is naturally
the first object of our attention. As the Infinite or
Absolute of Existence which is the same as God or
Creator, is the beginning or source of things, and as
there is nothing which does not come from that In-
finite source, therefore it follows that the first or
natural birth of man is and must be from the Infi-
nite to the finite. But the finite from the moment
of its birth out of the Infinite, being from that time
a distinct personality, is itself and not another ; is
the personal and responsible creature and not the
Creator ; has its own recognized and definite sphere
of existence in distinction from that of other created
beings ; an existence which is not only discriminated
from that of other beings but is really and con-
sciously its own. The statement itself, too plain to
need the refinements of argument, may justly be re-
garded as carrying its own evidence.

And this is not all. From the moment that cre-
ated man first knows himself as an existence in the.
finite and as a distinct personality, it is obviously
and necessarily a law of his being that he seeks and
finds his centre in himself. As at first he knows
himself and only himself, he certainly could not be
expected in the beginning of his existence and with

THE SECOND, OR NEW BIRTH.

97

a knowledge limited to himself to seek and find a
centre out of himself. And accordingly it is true in
philosophy and is confirmed by observation, that
turning inwardly and acting from his own centre he
thinks for himself, feels for himself, wills for himself,
and primarily and in the first instance draws all his
hope from himself. He cannot properly be said to
be self-made; but being made he cannot in the first
instance be otherwise than self-centred. And hence
it is said in the Scriptures, and in reference to the
limitations that necessarily attend him, that the first-
man is born oi the earth, earthy : in other words,
with the nature and limitations which are necessarily
attendant on created existences. And again, in the
words of Christ himself, " that which is born of the
flesh is flesh." As much as to say, that the finite is
born into what it is, namely its own restricted and
imperfect nature. This is the first birth, the first
form of life ; and it is not easy to see how it could
be otherwise than it is.

3. — It is not surprising therefore, that Christ in
the conversation with Nicodcmus, to which we have
referred, spoke not only of the first or " flesh" birth,
but also in the same sentence of a second or spirit
birth. " That which is born of the flesh, is flesh ;
and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." And
then he added, " marvel not that I said unto you,
5

9 3 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

ye must be born again" Expressions which if closely
examined imply not only the fact but a moral ne-
cessity for it. And now, having stated what phi-
losophy affirms in relation to the first birth, the
question comes up, what is the moral necessity or
philosophy of the second birth. Stated in a general
way, the second birth is a birth back from the finite
to the Infinite ; from the life of the creature to the
life of the Creator ; a birth which is both based upon
the personality of the first birth as its antecedent
condition, and which takes place without the loss
of such personality. In the first birth God may be
said to make or constitute the finite, giving it the
freedom and independence of a personal existence ;
and yet without spiritually incarnating Himself in it
as an indwelling principle of that life. This last
could not be done in consequence of the inviolabil-
ity of its freedom, without a consenting action on
the part of the creature. In the second birth, the
finite in the exercise of its moral freedom, which is
an essential element in its personality, has accepted
God in the central intimacy of its nature as its liv-
ing and governing principle. So that the human or
" earthy," as the Scriptures call it, without ceasing
to be human or earthy, but by renouncing its own
centre as the source of life, and taking God as its
centre, does by its own choice and in a true and

THE SECOND, OR NEW BIRTH. gg

hisrh sense become divine. And thus God himself,
in the case of all those, who by being born with the
second birth are born in the image of the " Elder
Brother," who stands before us as the true pattern
and illustration of the new inward life, may be said
to the extent in which they bear that image, to be
truly made manifest in the flesh.

Such was God's plan from the beginning ; such
the thought of Infinite Wisdom. It never could have
been the intention of God, who is essential goodness,
in establishing the finite personality to separate it
permanently from the infinite or universal personal-
ity, and thus raise up an endless antagonism to him-
self. So that his object, and in the light of the Ab-
solute Religion, it is the only course He can take,
is to establish man first in the limited personal life
of the first birth, and then, by means of the great facts
involved in the second birth, and in harmony with
man's own personal recognitions and acceptance, to
make him one with the universal or divine personal
life.

4. — So that the doctrine of the second birth,
which man in his first or Adamic life does not easily
understand, and indeed according to the apostle
Paul docs not understand at all in the true sense, is
no fiction, no mistake ; but on the contrary is a great
truth in philosophy, and a great realization in expe-

100 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

rience. But the question may perhaps be asked,
whether there is really so much difference between
the two forms of life as to justify the application of
distinctive terms ; and whether the second form of
life is anything more or otherwise than a progression
and very high degree of the first or natural life. In
answering this question, which will be likely to arise
in some minds, we remark that the great fact of
personality in both cases is the same ; so that the
same person is the subject of both forms of experi-
ence without prejudice to his individualism ; and if
he were at any time to reach 'spiritually the position
of an angel, it would not at' all perplex the matter
of his personal identity. And furthermore, it may
be admitted, and is undoubtedly true, that there is
a foundation for the Doctrine of progression ; but
the doctrine of progression implies, I suppose, that
there is an end toward which we progress ; an ob-
ject which the soul is consciously in pursuit of.
And if we have a right understanding of the matter,
the end or object may be, and in fact must be, dis-
tinguished from the successive and progressive steps
which are prerequisite to- it. There are many things
in these successive steps, which are called and which
may justly be regarded as facts of religious experi-
ence, and which in consequence of the real interest
and value attaching to them, are sometimes errone-

THE SECOND, OR NEW BIRTH. I0I

ously mistaken for the second Birth in the true and
higher sense of the phrase ; but in point of fact they
are merely steps or incidents in the way and not the
end or termination of the way. A soul new-born is
not a process, but a thing done ; not a doing or being
done, but a fact accomplished, a definite result and
definitely and consciously realized ; and one it may
be added, in which God and angels take an interest
and in which all heaven rejoices.

5. — And in my apprehension, whatever may be
true of progression either before or after the second
birth, and whatever may be true of continued and
unbroken personality, there is a line of distinction
between the first and second form of life, between
the old Adamic life and the new Christ life, consid-
ered simply as forms of life, which is not only
marked and clear, but in point of fact the two things
are so distinct, the one never going beyond the
finite, and the other bound up in the golden links of
the Infinite, that they are incommensurable with
each other, and in the essence of their nature forever
stand apart. But this is a matter of so much im-
portance that I propose to occupy another chapter
with a contrasted view in some particulars of the
two forms of life, in the hope to vindicate and make
clear these positions.

CHAPTER X.

Relation of the First to tiie Second Birth,

I. — It might be supposed from what has been
said in the preceding chapter, that the first form of
life, to which so large a portion of theological atten-
tion has from time to time been directed, is either
in its nature essentially evil, or at least must be re
garded as of no practical position and value in the
development of man's spiritual history. Such a
view in either of the aspects which have been inti-
mated, would be a great mistake. The argument
on one of the points is clear. It cannot be said on
any just philosophical grounds that God creates sin.
The eternal truth rejects any such affirmation. And
therefore man's first birth, at the moment of its ori-
gin, has and must have the character of innocency.
But this is not the whole statement in the case.
Standing alone in the relative incompleteness of its
incipient condition, but naturally preferring, in the
consciousness of its freedom and power to make its
own way and to do its own acts in the universe of

RELATION OF FIRST TO SECOND BIRTH. 103

things, it necessarily finds itself at a very early pe-
riod, and perhaps in its very first acts, exposed to
the greatest hazards. Its innocence is no certain
pledge of its security. Its innocence involving the
fact of its freedom becomes the natural, perhaps the
inevitable precursor of its sin.

2. — The view of the Scriptures on this subject is
supposed to be familiar to all. The Absolute Reli-
gion, or religion as founded on philosophical observa-
tion and analysis, harmonizes with it. And in the
support of this last assertion, which carries with it
consequences which involve the interests of human-
ity, let us delay a little and examine the subject in
its details.

We first see man coming from the creating hand
of God. He stands before us as the Adamic man,
erect, self-centred and free. No child of Satan ; but
a child of the living God, and constituted in a very
important sense in the image of God. And it is the
fact that he is thus constituted, being as really ex-
istent and free in the human sphere as God is in the
infinite or divine sphere, which makes his danger.
He stands sublime in his independence. He occu-
pies an eminence above all other created things.
His joy is as great as the greatness of his position.
But can he stand alone ? That is the question.
With all the independence and power which he act-

104 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

ually possesses, is it true that he either is or can be
morally secure amid a universe of existences and re-
lations, no rights or claims of which are ever allowed
to be violated?

3. — It is unquestionable that man knew well
both the fact and the nature of the power and the
freedom. which God had given him. God had not
only given them to him ; but with the gift had given
also, without which they would have been valueless,
the consciousness which recognized them as his own.
But is it necessary to add there was one thing which
he did not know? He had no adequate compre-
hension, and in consequence of the necessary limita-
tion and finiteness of his powers it was impossible
that he should have, of the infinitude of obligations
that rested upon him. And still less, standing firm-
ly in the sphere of his independence and trusting in
the newborn joy of his own strength alone, was he
able to. fulfil these obligations. To accept the aid
which the divine benevolence offered him had the
appearance of giving up his independence. His in-
dependence seemed to be, as it really was, the glory
of his nature. To part with it even in the smallest
degree and under any circumstances, was striking a
blow at the essence of his life. Blinded by the
splendor of the gifts which had been imparted to
him, he virtually asked God who had made him in

RELATION OF FIRST TO SECOND BIRTH. I05

this grand incipient completeness, to stand aside and
let him alone.

How could he being a man be otherwise than he
was ; or how, being situated as he was, could he do
otherwise than he did? The law which required
him to fulfil every duty, — a law as limitless in its
applications as the infinitude of existing facts and
relations, — was upon him ; and it could not be oth-
erwise. And undertaking in his ignorance to fulfil
it in his own strength, — a strength which was not
strong enough to renounce itself under such circum-
stances,— he necessarily failed and fell.

4. — Such are the essential facts which present
themselves to our observation as we theoretically
and practically study the history of the human race ;
and which are more or less clearly revealed in the
facts and incidents of the biblical narrative. Man
fell. The weight of his own glory inseparable from
the inviolability of his personal and responsible ex-
istence, combined as it was with the position in
which he was necessarily placed, bore him down.
It was of the nature of a moral necessity ; but it
was not without the signatures of divine goodness
and wisdom. His fall as it is denominated, great
and terrible as it was, carried with it the noblest
testimony which could possibly be given of the high
and glorious nature of the gifts which had been im-
5*

I06 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

parted. A testimony so striking and decisive that
the universe, which is interested in all that pertains
to man and which cannot live upon doubts, could
not afford to be without it. It was necessary in or-
der to establish a basis for the ever-growing devel-
opment and harmonies of the universe, in order to
build the pillars of the future in eternal strength,
not only that man should be free, but that he should
be known to be free. The fall of man settles it for-
ever, that the manhood which his Creator gave him
was a divine reality and not a pretentious sem-
blance.

5. — When in my early life I read in some of the
old Puritan theologians that there was wisdom and
glory in the fall of man and that great good had re-
sulted from it, I failed to see the truth of their dec-
larations. And if in the sense of my comparative
ignorance, I had not the strength entirely to reject
their statements, I certainly had not the ability to
comprehend them. I reserved them as I have done
in many other instances, for further meditation.
And my thought to-day, subject to the corrections
of any higher wisdom, is, that they were right in the
substance of their meaning, though imperfect and
liable to lead to error in their expression of it. The
fall of man was and is a good, because it was and is
the only testimony which can settle, beyond the

RELATION OF FIRST TO SECOND BIRTH. 107

reach of doubt and cavil, the question of the com-
pleteness of his moral nature in the matter of his
moral liberty.

The history of six thousand years with its record
of deceptions and cruelties, of suspicions, calumnies
and hatreds, with its usurping tyrannies and bloody
wars, and not without the bright inheritance of vir-
tuous purposes and noble deeds, leaves no room to
doubt, that man in the greatness of his nature was
created with the capacity to discriminate between
right and wrong and to do either good or evil. But
this decisive testimony which removes all doubt,
could not have been reached with anything short of
the multitude of sad and guilty facts which are in-
volved in it.

6. — We pass now to another view. It can be
said of the first form of life that it is not only not
evil in its nature, but that it sustains relations and
secures results of the greatest importance. Its
greatness and glory, with all its admitted liabilities
to error and transgression, are evident from this, that
without the first birth the second birth, with all the
hopes and honors which attach to it would have
been an impossibility. The later or heavenly birth,
it is true, is born of heavenly influences flowing
down to it from heavenly sources and elevating the
soul to its new position; but these influences gain

IOS ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

no admittance and of course exert no power until
the soul, with the key of its inalienable freedom,
opens the door for their entrance and accepts them
as its own. God undoubtedly is to be regarded as
a party in this great work ; he cannot be separated
from the divine influences which have been men-
tioned ; and without Him nothing is done effectual-
ly. But there are moral as well as physical impossi-
bilities ; and God cannot do that which is impossi-
ble to be done. It is impossible for God to bestow
upon men the attributes of freedom and power in
sincerity, and yet at the same time to destroy, or to
interfere with and perplex their appropriate position
and action. If there is anything which may be re-
garded as fully settled, either in sound philosophy
or in any generally accepted theology, it is the posi-
tion, that the gift of moral freedom implies and ne-
cessitates the impossibility of its violation. So that
the first or oldest birth, whether regarded as pure
and innocent at the period of its origin, or with
some inherent taint of evil as some suppose, or
what seems to be and what we think must be the
truth in the case, with innocence attended with a
liability to evil, by an arrangement which, growing
out of the nature of things, could not be otherwise
than it is, places the crown as the result of its histo-
ry and experience upon the head and heart of the

RELATION OF FIRST TO SECOND BIRTH. 109

second birth. And in this sense at least, Adam, in
the line and the destinies of humanity, becomes as
the Scriptures represent him, the progenitor of
Christ ; Adam falls that Christ may rise ; the Ad-
amic man perishes that the Christ or Christian man,
made strong by the element of a new life may come
and take his place and may live forever.

7. — But proceeding a step further, we next in-
quire what is the true and interior nature of this
remarkable work. There is a remark of St. Augus-
tine which indicates what this nature is, " A mores
duo ducts civitates fecerunt." Two loves have made
two cities ; the one Babylon, the other Jerusalem ; the
one a city of discord and unrighteousness, the other
a city of harmony and rectitude. Looking at the
matter philosophically, it is not necessary to deny
that these two loves are the same in their individu-
al nature ; and are only discriminated and separated
by the diversity in their applications and objects.
If man had not been created with the love of him-
self, would he have possessed the measurement, by
which he was required to estimate his love to his
neighbor? We read repeatedly in the writings of
Paul, "thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
And in other places, in expressions of still broader
and higher import, " thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thy-

I i o ABSOL UTE RELIGION.

self; " identifying the love of God, so far as its na-
ture is concerned, with the love of our neighbor,
and in that way as it seems to me, identifying the
love of our Maker, in respect to its nature at least,
with the love of man.

It is true that the love of God is greatly higher
than that of our neighbor, because while the love
of our neighbor extends to and embraces humanity,
the love of God reaching far above and far below,
includes the love of all existences. As President
Edwards in one of the most remarkable of his works
expresses it, it is the " love of being in general ; " in
other words, love of everything which exists and is
susceptible of being loved. And yet it seems to us
it cannot well be doubted, in the light of a candid
and careful analysis, that the love of God is the
same in its essential nature with the love of oui
neighbor, which in its kind or nature is the same
with that of ourselves. So that the love of God,
looking at the matter either in the light of the
Scriptures or of the highest reason, is the expansion
of the love of ourselves, which in the lower or com-
parative sense is the infinitely small, to what in the
higher or absolute sense is the infinitely great ; in
other words, from a sphere of action which is meas-
ured by individualism, to a sphere of action whose
universality places it beyond the possibility of meas-

RELA TION OF FIRST TO SECOND BIR Til. \ \ i

urement. And this statement, in harmony with
what was intimated in a former passage, involves
the comparative measurement of the first and sec-
ond birth, and makes them, in the matter of extent
or degree, incommensurable.

8. — Upon this subject, the greatness of the sec-
ond Birth, we have no language which can well ex-
press our feelings. Perhaps we ought to say again,
and still more explicitly, that we understand by the
second Birth something more than the ordinary
forms, valuable as they are, of transitional religious
experience. A man may be greatly exercised in re-
ligious experiences, and indeed it is often the case,
without his being able to say in the higher and true
sense that he is born of God. The second birth is
the soul found in the image of God, not merely in
the matter of moral freedom but of universal love ;
the soul expanded from the consideration of self
alone to the regard and love of every other being ;
the out-growth and the divine consummation of the
souPs antecedent and preparatory history. It gains
a position in which, harmonizing with God, God be-
comes its teacher ; and in which, going hand in hand
with its great Creator, it henceforth marches onward
forever to learn, forever to love, and forever to en-
joy.

9. — But the question still remains, where docs

! ! 2 A B SOL UTE RELIGION.

this heavenly love come from, and under what con-
ditions does it come. We answer, it is the gift of
God ; perhaps it would be better to say, it is the in-
flowing of God. The latter term implies that it
comes by the necessities of law ; the former, that it
depends on the uncontrolled decisions of volition.
If we are right in the views we entertain, it is a part
of God's nature, without which he would be some-
thing less than God, to flow out or communicate
himself, in the attributes of truth and good, to all be-
ings that are capable of receiving and are willing to
receive. He chooses to do this, because his nature
never allows him to choose otherwise ; and thus
the choice which, without the nature, would be
giving, being sustained and sanctified by the nature,
becomes an in-flowing. If God is Love, which fhe
Scriptures as well as philosophy affirm him to be,
there can be no difficulty here.

But there is still something remaining. This
great and desirable result, which has the heart of the
Infinite in its favor, depends nevertheless upon
man ; at least in this particular, that this in-flowing
from the divine heights can never reach him, can
never become the baptism of the soul and the souFs
reeeneration, without his own consent. It is when
he can truly say " not my will but thine be done,"
that his consent is fully given. God could not make

RE LA TION OF FIRST TO SECOND BIRTH. 113

him in the true greatness of his nature, and did not
make him, without giving him this mighty preroga-
tive.

10. — And now, let us look a moment in another
direction ; and what do we see ? The second birth
in any other way, or on any other conditions, be-
comes an impossibility. Is it possible for God to
raise man to that high position, with the opposition
of his own will standing against it ? And more than
this, take away the freedom of the will, which is the
completing or consummating element in man's na-
ture, and there is nothing to be raised. It is true
that freedom of the- will does not constitute the
whole of man ; but it is also true that man is not
and cannot be constituted as man without it. The
new birth, which implies that the soul is not and
cannot be a machine, the new-birth which is in the
highest sense a grand moral, spiritual and responsi-
ble realization, could never have had a place without
the antecedents of man's first birth of freedom and
personality. The statement is an argument; and
the argument is conviction. -And therefore it is we
say, look at man as he is, and call him man or devil,
inasmuch as a name cannot alter the fact ; and it is
impossible not to bow with reverence in the pres-
ence of human nature, which, with all its liabilities

ii4

ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

to evil, still holds in its hand the possibilities of
heavenly and eternal life.

II. — And now, taking our position on such
grounds, is it out of place to utter a few words in
favor of our common humanity, even in those forms
which have the sad aspect of degradation and sor-
row ? Is there one so low that he wholly loses the
dignity of his nature, and lies below the notice of a
sympathizing tear? The Adamic man, even in the
degradation of his fall, holds in his hand the key of
universal good. Go with me to yonder prison, which
contains within its iron bars, and shuts out from the
light of day, the thief and the drunkard, the robber
and the murderer; and in those countenances of sor-
row and of crime, canst thou not see something
which speaks to thee of a common brotherhood,
something which inspires in thy saddened bosom
sentiments of forgiveness and hope ? I speak for
myself, but I am confident, that I find in the emo-
tions of my own heart the common thought and
feeling of our common humanity.

And if these sentiments are the out-birth of a
sound philosophy in relation to our initiative or Ad-
amic humanity, they cannot fail to inspire feelings
of reverence and love for that great Book in which
it is said, " He maketh his sun to rise on the evil
and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and

RELATION OF FIRST TO SECOND BIRTH n$

on the unjust.11 And where we read, " Father, for-
give them, for they know not what they do." And
where it is said again, " Neither do I condemn thee ;
go, and sin no more." And again, " This day thou
shalt be with me in Paradise."

CHAPTER XI.

Relation of Moral Evil to Freedom, and its Remedy.

I. — It is implied in the fact of forgiveness^to
which reference was made at the close of the last
chapter, in connection with the forgiving and loving
principles involved in the mystery of the Cross,
that there is something which needs to be forgiven ;
in other words, that man has gone astray and sin-
ned. This fact brings up the. inquiry, upon which
there has been from time to time so much discus-
sion, of the origin of moral evil. The view of the
Absolute Religion, which is also the doctrine of the
Scriptures when properly interpreted and under-
stood, is that moral evil in its various forms and de-
grees is necessarily incidental to the facts which are
involved in the constitution of man's nature. In
other words, the liability to sin is a necessary result
of the great faculties and capabilities, which are
man's inheritance.

2. — It is the Scriptural statement that man was
created in the " image of God." A statement which

MORAL EVIL. uy

is entitled on grounds of observation and reason to
be accepted in its essential meaning, although it re-
quires to be modified in its import by the considera-
tion that man is finite and the Creator infinite. But
with this modification kept in view, which implies
that the likeness in the creation exists in the out-
lines and essential nature of being, rather than in
the amount or degree of being, it still remains, that
man was created in the divine image, in the first
place, perceptively ; in other words, in the posses-
sion of those powers which are employed in the ac-
quisition of knowledge. And if the limitation, to
which we have referred, excludes the attribute of
omniscience, it accepts both the possibility and the
fact of such a degree of knowledge as is appropri-
ate to a finite being. Secondly, man was created
in the image of God sentimentively ; that is to say,
he was created with that distinct and more interior
department of our mental nature which is some-
times appropriately expressed by the term sensibili-
ties ; and which, in being the sphere of the senti-
ments, originates feeling in its various forms of emo-
tions, desires and feelings of obligation, in distinc-
tion from mere perceptive acts. And thirdly, he was
created with the power or faculty of the will; that
great and controlling department of the mind, where
we are to look for the foundations, or at least the

l 1 5 ABSOL UTE RELIGION.

necessary conditions, of personality and accountabil-
ity. In all these important respects there can be no
hesitation in saying that man was created in the
imasre of God. And as a resultant of these attri-
butes of being, and as a necessary fulfilment of the
statement that he was born in the divine image, he
was created self-centred ; a being not only endued
with living power, but created in the possession of
absolute moral freedom within the sphere of his
personal existence and activity.

3. — So that if we rightly conceive of the princi-
ples of his birth, man was created a child of God,
with a reality of freedom and of personal responsi-
bility in his own finite sphere, analogous to that of
God himself in his infinite sphere. The attribute
of volitional and moral freedom, with that practical
self-reliance which grows out of it, makes the self-
centred position complete. So that man, being
what he is and created as he is, is necessarily born a
self-hood ; and that self-hood, claiming on the ground
of moral freedom a likeness and relationship with
the self-hood of God, is not more a necessary condi-
tion or form of his life, than it is the foundation of
his greatness and glory. And accordingly, though
as man he is an out-birth from God and is necessari-
ly inferior to God, he stands within his own sphere
of life, and in virtue of the psychical and moral gifts

MORAL EVIL. I ig

which have been imparted to him, essentially a de-
ific being ; and is truly and emphatically born in the
image of God and made a son of God. And that
which, more than anything else, although none of
his other mental attributes could be dispensed with,
gives him this high place, and that which establishes
him as one born in the image of God, and makes
him a true child of God, is his inviolable freedom.

4. — In being an out-birth from the Infinite, man
is not on that account infinite himself, but on the
contrary is characterized, and necessarily so, by
finiteness. An infinite out-birth, if it could be a
thing conceivable, would be essentially a contradic-
tion in terms. A creation or out-birth, which could
be characterized as infinite, would not be an out-
birth, but an identity. So that man, in the primal
principles and facts of his creation, is born as he is
and was, because he could not be born otherwise ;
made in the image of God, and therefore in an im-
portant sense deific, but not infinite. But here
comes an incident of his history which is worthy of
notice. The law and the facts. of his being are such,
that while they constitute the necessity and the glo-
ry of his existence, they draw the lines of separation,
and place him, in the first instance, not only in the
isolation of self-hood, but for a time at least in prac-
tical antagonism with everything else. He stands

I20 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

up in the conscious greatness of his individualism,
which is only another name for his self-hood ; and
in the power and in the just pride of self-affirmation,
his first utterance is necessarily an interrogation of
the universe. He says, I am a man; let no one
touch me ; let no one violate the sphere of my activ-
ity; let no one attempt to control me. That proud
voice which in affirming itself and ascertaining its
own position, interrogates and warns all others,
sounds through all heights and all depths, and pro-
claims the birth of a deific son. God himself stands
aside, as it were, in deep reverence and love of his
own mighty work ; and will not, and in fact cannot,
without a self-contradiction, act adversely in the
violation, in any degree whatever, of that divine at-
tribute of freedom which He has given never to be
recalled.

5. — But, although God had given man freedom,
there was another thing which he did not and could
not give. He did not and could not give him the
right to violate the position and the rights of any
other being which exists, whether great or small.
All beings have their position and rights as distinctly
marked and as clearly inviolable as are those of man
So that, although man was born into the position of
self-hood with all its possibilities and responsibili-
ties, yet the great law of the universe, which God

MORAL EVIL. I2I

himself could not abrogate or alter, requires him to
exercise that self-hood in all its tendencies and acts,
in harmony with the rights and the highest good
of all others. The soul in its self-hood, with the
freedom and power of its self-hood, and yet without
the knowledge which might enable it to act in har-
mony with the rights and claims of all other beings,
is the soul in its first birth ; the soul, in the language
sometimes employed by theologians, in its Adamic
life. And it is here, in this position of the soul,
great and wonderful as it is, that we find the possi-
bility and the practical beginnings of moral evil. It
acts, because it has the freedom and the power to
act ; and is determined to act, because it is justly in
love with its freedom and power ; but in its blindness
it is constantly doing wrong, because in breaking
the law to which even freedom is bound to submit,
it violates the harmonies of the universe. But all
these sins and errors, originating in blindness of
mind, are forgiven and blotted out in the principles
and experiences of the Cross, as we have already
explained them. And the soul, prepared by what
it has passed through and impressed with a new and
deeper sense of the divine wisdom, is born into that
higher and better position which is not inappropri-
ately called the second birth.

6. — We can perhaps illustrate these views and

122 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

make them clearer by calling to mind that the state
of things which we have just now described, is es-
sentially, and almost precisely, what we daily see in
little children. Their freedom, without which in
their sad stupidity, they would be but little better
than mere blocks of stone or wood, sparkles in their
eyes, sounds in their voice, and is a living activity
in their hands and feet. And this very freedom,
without which they would cease to be true children,
constitutes the parents' highest joy. The parents
look upon the exuberance of their bliss in their run-
nings to and fro, and in their thousand experimental
activities, with an ecstasy of pleasure ; regarding it
as the presage of the reality and the fruits of man-
hood and womanhood. And yet the first thing
they do, is to place this incipient freedom, which is
the seed of moral life and without which moral life
is an impossibility, under law. They tell their chil-
dren not to do this thing and not to do that thing;
and the child, overrunning with gladness in the
possession of his personality, seldom fails in some of
the particulars which are placed under prohibition,
to go contrary to the orders of the loving parents.
And the consequence is, that they not only go astray,
but they suffer for it ; and there is no restoration for
them and no happiness for them until they are will-
ing to place themselves under parental direction, or

MORAL EVIL.

123

what is the same thing, to place their wills under
the wills of their parents.

7. — This analogous illustration helps us to under-
stand man's position in relation to God. The child
who disobeys suffers ; and the human race in its dis-
obedience to God suffers ; but the love of the parent
comes to the rescue of the child ; and so the love of
God, incarnated and manifested in Christ, comes to
the rescue of the race ; and in both cases promptly,
sincerely, and so far as the possibilities of the case
will allow, effectually. All that is wanting on the
part of man is those dispositions, including the pen-
itent recognition of his sin, which will secure obedi
ence. The great law of the universe which requires
a regard for the rights and happiness of all possible
existences, is an imperative one. It is a law so clear
that it needs no proof except what it carries in itself
in the fact of its own intuitional affirmation. And
yet it is a law which cannot by any possibility be
obeyed, except in one way ; namely, by placing the
human will in the keeping of the Divine will. And
this, it cannot well be doubted, was the interior
meaning and object of the law of Paradise, namely,
to adjust permanently the relation of the human and
the Divine will in order to man's guidance and good.

8. — But the question may suggest itself here
whether this is not a hard case for man ; endowed

I24 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

as he is with freedom, and yet in the exercise of
that freedom without which he would cease to be a
man, doomed to errors which bring him into con-
demnation and suffering. It might perhaps be re-
garded so if this were the termination of his history,
and if there were no escape from a position so un-
looked for and so sad. But the Fall, as it is theo-
logically expressed, or that series of events in which
freedom in its early and irrepressible love of itself,
took the position of disobedience to law and thus
became rebellion, though a terrible evil in itself, is
incidentally a gain in its results. And the reason
of this is found in what has already been intimated
in relation to the love and goodness of God. Man
sins and suffers ; but he is not deserted. " Can a
woman forget her sucking child, that she should not
have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea,
they may forget, yet will I not forget thee." Great
words, uttered by an ancient Prophet in the solitary
mountains of Judea ; but which belong to all lands
and nations. And what then, having done all that
he consistently could do by instruction or in other
ways, to prevent the fall, shall he do now that the
fall has become a reality? Revealing himself in the
divine analogy of his works, he teaches us that He
does just what the true earthly parent does ; only in
a higher degree and with unspeakably greater re-

MORAL EVIL. 1 25

suits. In the first place, so great is his love that he
allows them to suffer, or perhaps better he cannot
help their suffering, because sin and suffering neces-
sarily go together. He lets them suffer so long as
they remain in disobedience, because there is no
other way. The ways of God are not accidents, but
wisdoms; not the uncertainties and the variations
of time, but the permanencies of eternity.

gm — It is possible that some will say here, if free-
dom is necessary to the realization and the constitu-
tion of their manhood, then the surrender of the
will to God is practically giving up the great charac-
teristic of humanity, and is in fact the withdrawal
and the annihilation of the great essential element
which makes man what he is. It was perhaps this
fear in part, in man's incipient and Adamic condition,
which led him into the disobedience of rejecting the
divine command. But it was only a fear, and not a
verity. God never proposed, and never can propose,
without violence to the most glorious truths and sym-
pathies of his nature, to violate man's freedom, or to
destroy it, or injure it in any way or degree, under
any circumstances or in any place ; either in the in-
cipient Adamic humanity or in the perfected Christ
humanity; in heaven, earth, or hell; in time or in
eternity. All that He proposes, and all that He
asks, in view of the creative and sustaining relation-

I26 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

ships of his eternal Fatherhood, is, that He may be
allowed to exercise his parental interest and care,
by guiding or helping to guide man in those cases,
(and this is true of all cases of voluntary action,)
which, in consequence of their infinitely varied rela-
tions, are in many essential respects beyond the
reach and judgment of a finite mind. Cases where,
if he is not guided by a Mind that understands this
infinity of remote facts and relations, his fall becomes
a moral necessity. It is the surrender of the will
under these circumstances and to this extent, which
God demands in virtue of his paternal necessities ;
and its refusal on the part of man is, and must be
his certain and necessary ruin. But such a surren-
der of the will as this, is not the destruction of the
will, and is not the destruction of humanity ; but on
the contrary is the perfection of the will's action by
harmonizing it with the truth, and is the human
will harmonizing with the will of God in the divine
marriage of a common thought and purpose; and
instead of being the destruction, is the preservation
and the perfection of humanity.

io. — The doctrine of the Fall then understood
in its principles, stands before us not merely in the
literal statements of the Scripture narrative, but as
one of the great problems of philosophy, which the
truth vindicates and accepts. And it may be ac-

MORAL EVIL. \2J

ccpted as a moral axiom, that whatever harmonizes
with the truth will be found all for the best. It was
best that man should be created as a self-centred
existence or self-hood, with the freedom appropriate
to it. It was best that he should demonstrate to
himself and the universe, that he had a self-con-
sciousness, a positive sphere of action, a personal
responsibility, a divine freedom ; and thereby vindi-
cate his deific descent. It was best that God
should leave him to the possibilities of the Fall, and
that he should fall if in his freedom he chose to do
so ; not only for the reason which has been intimat-
ed, that he might be assured and all others might
be assured of these great attributes of his nature;
but that the love of God might be summoned to
meet the exigency of his unhappy disobedience and
overthrow. It was best that he should suffer the
sorrows that are always born of sin, that in the
greatness of his anguish he might cry out for
help. It was best that the miseries which in the
Fall flow out of the First Birth, should lead to the
blood-bought inheritance of the Second Birth ; that
self-hood renouncing its personal and selfish limita-
tions, should grow up into universal-hood ; that an
in-dwelling Adam should be exchanged for an in-
dwelling Christ ; and the Life that perishes for the
Life that lives forever.

CHAPTER XII.

The Divine Purposes.

I. — The doctrine of the Divine Purposes, to
some extent in the more general form of Providen-
tial arrangements, but especially when regarded as
including the doctrines of Decrees and Election, and
any and all results which rest specifically upon the
decisions of the Divine will, has met with serious
objections in the minds of many. And yet it can-
not well be doubted, that the analogies of nature
and the suggestions and arguments of a broad and
reflective philosophy will be likely to discover an
important and perhaps an indispensable truth in
that direction. Our views will of course be based
upon the accepted idea of the existence of God.
And reasoning upon this basis, it must not be for-
gotten, that the facts of the universe, whatever they
may be, embody the wisdom of the Great Mind of
the universe ; and the wisdom of the great superin-
tending Mind cannot possibly be separated from his
goodness.

THE DIVINE PURPOSES. 129

And the first question which arises is, what has
He done? In other words, what are the results of
his mental decisions ? We shall all agree I suppose,
that we find the answer to this question in what we
everywhere behold around us. Looking especially
at man, who is commonly regarded as the greatest
of His works, we find the condition of things so ex-
isting, which implies that they are so originated and
so arranged, that there are innumerable diversities
of rich and poor, of learned and ignorant, of those
who are bowed in sickness and affliction, and those
who are in prosperity, of men in palaces and men in
dungeons, of men honored by virtues and men de-
graded by crimes. It may even be said that there
are no two situations and no two characters which
are precisely alike.

2. — Now it must be admitted that this state of
things is not at variance with the thought and pur-
pose of the great controlling Mind, who is at the
head of all things. He has done it ; and in the ex-
ercise of the highest wisdom, he intended to do it.
It harmonizes with his idea of what is for the best ;
it constitutes a part of the divine plan — a plan
which may safely appeal to the highest human
reason for its acceptance and approval. It is possi-
ble that those who hold adverse or unfavorable
positions, those who pine on beds of sickness or
6*

j.0 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

look out upon the bright world through the grates
of a prison, may not always clearly see the evidences
of wisdom or even of justice. But when we look
away from individual cases which considered alone
might perplex the judgment, and contemplate crea-
tion as a great system, in which the highest wisdom
as well as the highest benevolence is called upon to
develop itself, I think we cannot fail to approve of
and to accept the wisdom of that grand creative
idea, which harmonizes the central unity of things
with the greatest possible diversities. In other
words we find the leading principle of a philosophic
answer to the objections that are made to the great
doctrine of unity and diversity. Look abroad upon
outward nature. And can it be affirmed that it is
less beautiful or less wisely ordered, because it is not
an unvaried and level expanse, but is diversified by
rocks, valleys and mountains? And what would
humanity be, where would be the interest attached
to it, if everything were reduced to a dead level,
without diversities of thought, without varieties of
action, without the hills and valleys and rocky and
rugged places of comparative situation, with all poor
and none rich, or all rich and none poor : so that a
man would find it impossible to be interested in the
welfare of his neighbor, and still less to do him
good. Such a state of things, like a dead level in

THE DIVINE PURPOSES.

131

the material world, would answer perhaps for a day
or an hour, but would soon become a profitless and
hopeless stupidity.

3. — And now, when we attempt to look more
carefully into the origin of things or rather into the
causes of things, not merely the beginning but the
intelligent cause which makes their beginning, we
are obliged to say, since we have nothing else to say,
that the causative principle of this state of things is
God himself. And we mean by this, that God
stands at the head not only of creation but of the
diversities of creation ; not only of existence but of
all the modifications and varieties of existence. God
makes the sunshine, and God makes the storm.
The springtime and the harvest ; the summer and
the winter are the Lord's : God made the mount-
ains : the hills and the valleys also are the works of
his hand. The rivers and the fountains are his : and
he makes mighty seas and oceans. The universe in
some important sense, is the reflex of himself; and
its infinite diversities are the expression of the wis-
dom and the boundless resources which are hidden
in the infinitude of his nature. And this causative
relation which makes him the responsible head of
all things, extends to things intellectual and moral
as well as physical ; to man as well as to outward
nature ; to every incident of his being and every

j <, 2 AB SOL U TE RELIGION.

form of his activity. In the theological and dog-
matic form of expression, to which we are now
directing attention, it is a matter of purpose and
decree. God sustains not merely a permissive, but
a positive and authoritative relation. He has " de-
creed "the facts of existence, he has "elected" the
course of individuals and empires.

4. — And all this, notwithstanding it seems to
sound harshly, we can admit and affirm, when the
matter is stated in its full extent and placed in its
proper relations. Let it not be forgotten that in
the universality of this grand " decree " and in the
discriminations of that authoritative process which
" elects " one vessel to " honor and another to dis-
honor," he embraces as a part of his scheme the fact
of man's moral freedom and its inviolability; the
immutable distinction of right and wrong ; the rela-
tion of wrong to punishment and of punishment to
wrong ; the principle of growth by means of exertion
and trial ; the mighty compensations of time, which
as time cannot be separated from eternity are
known only to himself; the adjustment of diversi-
ties which are seen, with harmonies that are neces-
sarily unseen, except by minds that can embrace all
facts and all relations ; that though some fall and
some rise, yet there " is not a sparrow that falleth
to the ground without his notice," that though he

THE DIVINE TUEPOSES. 133

saw his own Son nailed to the cross, yet he placed
upon his head the crown which shall shine through
the eternity of ages; — let these and many other
things be remembered and taken into account in
the consideration of this great subject. All that a
proper regard for the truth requires is, that the
proper breadth may be given to the problem ; that
it may be considered in its universality and in the
measureless extent of its possibilities. And whether
it be called " divine purpose," or " decree," or u elec-
tion" or by any other name, it holds a truth, when
properly discriminated and set in its true light,
which philosophy accepts, and practical religion has
never been able to dispense with.

5. — But if we must accept moral freedom at the
same time that we accept divine supremacy, the
question arises, — By what process can they be harmo-
nized with each other ? Where are the philosophic
methods which can reconcile what either is, or at
least has the appearance of being, a positive contra-
diction ? If we take the ground that they are really
contradictions, we must of course admit that they
cannot be reconciled. But in point of fact there are,
and can be no contradictions in the universe of God.
A contradiction in the thoughts or acts of God, or
in anything which makes a part of his created uni-
verse, necessarily implies an imperfection in his char-

I 34 ABSOL UTE RELIGION.

acter entirely at variance with the accepted -ideas
of the completeness of his knowledge and wisdom.
Collect and collate the facts that are presented to
notice around us, facts mental as well as material ;
facts which pertain to the spiritual sphere of things
as well as those which belong to the outward and
tangible ; and go further and establish all theories
and systems which legitimately flow from them ;
and it is true of one and all of them that they do
and must harmonize.

We do not say, nor would it be proper to say,
that their harmony is always perceived ; which is a
very different thing. But the harmony exists,
whether it be perceived or not. As the facts in
their vast multitude overleap all known limitations,
it is not possible that the human mind, in its ac-
knowledged fmiteness, should understand and ad-
just them all, either in themselves as objective facts
or in their subjective relations. And this state of
things lays the foundation for the exercise of belief
existing in matters beyond the reach of the senses
and even of consciousness. A true philosophy, one
which includes God as well as man, embraces and
affirms the doctrine of faith. And what we cannot
understand as a matter of direct perception, we are
still justified, on appropriate occasions, in having
faith beyond the limit of the revelation of the un-

THE DIVINE PURPOSES. 135

derstanding. And hence I think we may sec a true
philosophical spirit in a remark of Mr. Locke, where
he says ; — " I own freely to you the weakness of my
understanding, that, though it be unquestionable
that there is omnipotence and omniscience in God
our Maker, and though I cannot have a clearer per-
ception of anything than that I am free, yet I can-
not make [meaning undoubtedly that he could not
explain and clear up in all respects how it should be
so,] freedom in man consistent with omnipotence
and omniscience in God, though I am as fully persua-
ded of both as of any trttth I most firmly assent to ;
and therefore I have long since given up the consid-
eration of that question, resolving all into this short
conclusion, that if it be possible for God to make a
free agent, then man is free, though I see not the
way of it."

6. — Humanity needs a God who is a reality and
not a pretence. I think that man had rather be
under a tyrant than under a liberty which is with-
out law, or under an authority which gives no pro-
tection. God, who is neither the weakness of a
semblance nor the cruelty of an injustice, is the pro-
tector of the weak and the avenger of the injured.
He is no tyrant ; but we recognize both wisdom and
justice when we say he is God.

There are moral evidences as well as intellectual;

136 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

evidences which are based upon human action. If
the positive authority of God culminating in results
which lead intelligent men to speak of his decrees,
elections, and sovereign purposes, is not merely a
dogmatism but a truth, it will be found to be
strongly sustained as such by the practical results
in the lives and acts of those who receive it. And
undoubtedly the evidence from this source is such
as to arrest attention. Among the men in all ages
of the world who have been distinguished for firm-
ness of purpose and endurance of trial, there have
been a large number who have adopted these views
of God. Such were the Waldenses, whose touching
story will be remembered as long as the lofty cliffs
shall stand, from which in the support of their opin-
ions, they were thrown headlong and dashed to
pieces.

Such were the Covenanters of Scotland, whose
great theme was the sovereignty of God, and who
in their trials and sufferings carried to the extreme
of human endurance, could bless the hand that
"doeth all things well."

Such were the Jansenists who, in adopting the
Augustinian method of religious thought, including
the Protestant doctrine of Justification by Faith,
took a position which exposed them to misrepre-
sentation and to the greatest trials. The great

THE DIVINE PURPOSES. 137

names of Pascal, Arnauld and others among them,
renowned alike for genius and piety, could not save
them from fearful persecutions which have made
their history memorable in the annals of human
sorrow.

Such were the Pilgrims and Puritans of New
England, whose instructive history is repeated by
their descendants, not only on account of its strange
and romantic incidents and its great civil and polit-
ical results, but as an illustration of the greatness
of human strength when it rests believingly on the
•strength and purpose of an Almighty Arm.

7.— It is true then, that God decides our destiny.
And he does so, because all truth, all justice, and all
good, look to him for the approbation of his wis-
dom, and for the support of his strength. Either
God rules or what is called fatality rules. But the
Absolute Religion which is the highest declaration
of philosophy, rejects the unsatisfactory dogma of
fatalism, as a dishonor to truth and a crucifixion to
humanity. But in rejecting fatalism, it does not
reject the doctrine of the divine supremacy. Men
cannot afford to part with the great Calvinistic idea
which has become a part of human history; but
they will do well to surround it with accessories
which save it from exaggerations and which present
it in the true light

CHAPTER XIII.

Universality of Religious Thought,

I. — If there is a foundation for the doctrine of
an Absolute Religion, then we shall find intimations
and evidences of moral and religious thought in all
lands ; and though separately considered they may
bear the marks of imperfection and weakness, yet
they will be found harmonizing in one general ten-
dency, and contributing to one great result. Before
the time of Moses there were^ men, — -Enoch, Abra-
ham and Noah may be mentioned as examples, —
who were inwardly taught, and who communicated
valuable religious-truth to others.

The respect and even reverential homage shown
by Abraham to Melchisedek, in relation to whom
it was said, he was without father or mother, in
other words, without genealogical or historical rec-
ord, may be regarded as incidentally revealing the
fact of a religious character and position. The Ab-
solute Religion, abstractly considered, has its foun-
dation in the nature and relation of things ; but the

UNI VER SA LI T Y OF RELIGIO US TIIO UGHT. j 39

truths contained in it find their practical realization
and their expression in the thoughts, lives, and
history of individuals. Melchisedek was one of
these persons. The Egyptians had a religious sys-
tem. And it is not unreasonable to suppose that
Moses may have received some important religious
ideas from this remarkable people, among whom he
was brought up and educated. The authorship of
the first five books of the Bible is ascribed to Moses ;
but a careful examination of the first part of Genesis
in the original Hebrew shows, in the view of many
learned men, that he made use of and incorporated
into his work certain historical documents written
by other persons of an earlier date ; but who they
were or to what land belonging, is now unknown.

2.— The labors of the learned are greatly per-
plexed in ascertaining who was Job, and to what
land or people he belonged. But the intuitions of
the readers of his wonderful poem can affirm boldly,
in default of the records of personal history, that,
though unknown and mysterious as Melchisedek, he
was nevertheless a man of thought, of vast poetic
imagination, and filled with inspirational teachings
coming from above. In the latter days of the He-
brew commonwealth, and greatly separated in cer-
tain particulars of belief and practice from the great
mass of the Jewish people, whole sects made their

I4o ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

appearance, who may be described as seekers after
divine knowledge and as truly inspirational. The
history of the Essenes and Therapeutae, as it is given
apparently from living and reliable sources, by Philo
and Josephus, reveals facts of moral and religious in-
sight and culture which are explainable only on the
ground that the Living Principle of the universe,
moved by the necessity involved in the universality
of His great loving nature, has imparted to many
solitary and praying hearts, whose religious position
has not been generally recognized, some preparatory
portions of the truths of the everlasting Gospel.
At a still later period in history, in the Neo-Platonic
school of Alexandria, which pursued its investiga
tions to a considerable extent outside of the pale of
Christianity, there are thoughts and aspirations,
which remind one of the sublime meditations, and
the deep spiritual experiences of the Almarics and
Dinantos of the middle ages, with all the light and
development they had received from the teachings
of the New Testament.

3. — It was in those ancient days and in periods
exceedingly remote, and in another part of the
world, that other teachers, under the blooming shade
of Indian forests, and among them the mysterious
Sakya-Mouni, made their appearance. Millions
have been influenced by the teachings of this

UNIVERSALITY OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.

141

remarkable man. A prince, with all that wealth and
political position could contribute to his personal
happiness, and yet so deeply impressed with the
wants and miseries of men, that he retired into the
most solitary places, and aided by the preparation
of many years of abstinence and prayer, came forth
a humble and beneficent teacher of practical princi-
ples, which the more enlightened piety of the present
age is compelled to respect. And so, in like manner
God had mercy on the Persians and the Chinese ;
and in order that there might not be need of another
deluge and of other fires of Sodom and Gomorrah,
kindled the light of truth, feeble though it may have
been, in the bosoms of Zoroaster and Confucius.
The connection of the Persians with the Hebrews,
which was in part owing to a harmony of religious
thought, is a matter of great interest. The second
Temple was built under Persian authority and with
Persian aid. In Persia where the religious ideas in
relation to God, approximated to those of the He-
brews, the opinion was widely prevalent that a great
religious teacher and deliverer was to come. And
at the appointed period the " Wise Men" as they
are called, who were probably persons belonging to
the select and honored class of Persian Magi, came
from that distant land to do homage to the child of
Bethlehem.

!42 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

4. — If we look in other directions we find the
same remarkable fact, that everywhere great moral
and religious truths more or less clearly make their
appearance. Of those who received something of
this heavenly illumination among other peoples and
in other times, is it too much to say that Homer, a
great reality, although a man as much unknown as
Melchisedek and Job, was reached by some scatter-
ed rays. Let the man of deep moral intuition read
the works of that prince of poets, particularly the
Odyssey, not to settle points of geography or primi-
tive history, but to learn the facts and methods of
human action and the principles which lay at its
foundation ; and he will meet with moral problems,
and with moral and spiritual suggestions, the origin
of which can find an explanation only in such views
as have now been presented. It is said of Plato,
that he visited Egypt and studied at Heliopolis ;
and the remains of ancient art reveal to the aston-
. ished eye of the modern traveller, that the City ol
the Sun may have had attractions even for such a
mind as Plato's; but those who have deeply pon-
dered the import of his writings, will be slow to
believe that the teachings of Egyptian priests
wholly superseded the higher and better teachings,
which fall in mercy everywhere from the universal
presence and the universal operation of the great

UNIVERSALITY OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.

143

Living Principle. And we may speak of Socrates,
the light of Athens, whose scientific and moral doc-
trines were illustrated by the genius of Plato ; the
memory of whose sufferings and death for the truth,
is not recalled even in these late days without the
greatest sympathy and sorrow. The doctrine of the
Grecian dramatists, particularly ^Eschylus, is, that
evil deeds are followed by retribution; and that
Jupiter, whom they regarded as the highest ruling
power in human affairs, distributes to every one
according to the good or evil character which at-
taches to his doing, — a reality so great, that its
freedom can never be touched by arbitrary power,
and which holds in its own hand the height and
the degradation of its measureless destiny. It
may justly be asserted, that man with all his lia-
bilities to a morally evil course, is worthy of a
high degree of reverential respect, and is always
an object of the deepest interest so long as he
holds in his bosom the possibilities and seed of im-
mortality. Whatever may be said of his actually
sinning or of his liability to sin, it is still true
that he is a child of God, born in the image of
God. Xor is it inconsistent with this great truth
that he was, is, and necessarily must be sub-
jected to law. It cannot be otherwise. And espe-
cially is he subjected to that wide-reaching and

144 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

eternal law which God himself cannot modify or
repeal without a violation of his own moral nature,
that so far as he comes in contact with them, he
must respect the position and practically and fully
recognize the rights and claims of any and all be-
ings and things in the universe. This law, which
carries with it the sanctions of happiness or suffer-
ing, resolves itself into another equally clear to our
intuitional convictions, that inasmuch as it can be
fulfilled only in one way, he must place himself in
the keeping of the Infinite Mind ; and by a second
and grander birth be bom, or if it be preferred, be
intellectually and affectionally expanded out of the
limitations and necessary imperfections of self-hood,
so that seeing with God's eye and feeling with God's
heart and acting in God's will, who is both the
originating and the conservative force of the uni-
verse, he can become the child of God in the higher
and eternal sense. So that the new or second birth
which changes man's centre from the one to the all,
and from man to God, so far from being the oppro-
brium of theology, is its culmination and its crown of
honor. And if it is inconsistent with that mistaken
and pretended philosophy, which makes man a ma-
terialism and death an eternal sleep, is not incon-
sistent with philosophy of a higher and diviner
origin.

UNIVERSALITY OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 145

5. — And again what controversies have existed,
what mental battles have been fought, over the
supposed and alleged contradictions of the Trinity.
But the difficulty was, that humanity, struggling out
of the depths of the sensuous and limited, had not
reached that higher position, where it could recog-
nize the mighty and world-renovating truth of the
Motherhood of God.

And if under the biblical name of Wisdom or the
Word, hidden somewhat for wise purposes until the
fulness of time, there is an eternal Motherhood as
well as eternal Fatherhood, then it is no offence to
the highest reason to assert, that there is and must
be either actually or potentially, in posse or in esse,
an eternal Son. And in that Sonship linked to the
Infinite by a divine affiliation, happy will it be if we
too, in the expansion and completion of the second
Birth, shall find ourselves included.

6. — Other things might be mentioned. The
doctrine of salvation by faith for instance, on the
basis that salvation in its essential nature is a mental
state and not a locality, so far from being a preten-
tious mystery and theological figment, has its foun-
dation in well ascertained mental principles. Sal-
vation in its true sense is impossible in any other
way. And if it be asked how it was possible that
Christ and his unlettered followers, the most of
7

I4.6 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

whom had no especial advantages of education, be-
came so richly gifted in philosophical verities, I
answer that the philosophy of the human mind was
first hidden in the Infinite Mind, and that the sim-
plicity and truth of their hearts fitted them as noth-
ing else can fit men, to become apt and successful
disciples in the inward teachings of the eternal
God.

CHAPTER XIV.
Harmony of Religions Opinions.

i. — The Absolute Religion, so far as it can be es-
tablished and accepted, necessarily tends to the har-
mony of opinions. We do not forget, however, in
view of the actually existing constitution of the hu-
man mind, that absolute harmony of opinion on all
subjects is an impossibility. Differences of opinion
exist as the unavoidable result of differences in men-
tal structure, and of the different positions and as-
pects in which objects of inquiry are presented for
consideration. And such differences, which have
their foundation in the wisdom that regulates all
things, are one of the sources of the activity and hap-
piness of life. Nevertheless, when controverted sub-
jects are examined beyond the region of facts to the
region of principles, and when principles are recog-
nized by the highest reason, it may justly be antici-
pated that harmony of views, in such cases and to
such extent, will exist.

2. — A controversy of long duration has existed

I48 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

in relation to man's character at the time of his birth.
The controversy involves a variety of questions ; and
particularly whether man at the time of his birth is
a depraved or an innocent being ; and if his charac-
ter be that of purity or innocence, in what way are
we to explain the acknowledged fact of great moral
evils existing in the world. If we have given a true
exposition of the Absolute view, of which we must
leave others to judge, we have seen how the various
apparently contradictory views in relation to human
depravity may be reconciled. And this certainly,
when we remember how much time has been spent
on the subject and how much bad feeling engender-
ed, is a great gain.

3-— And so in regard to the atonement, as it is
theologically, and as it seems to me very properly,
termed. Atonement in its etymological sense
means reconciliation and union with God ; and phil-
osophy declares, that this could not take place with-
out the forgiveness of sin, as antecedent to the re-
moval of that moral antagonism which necessarily
exists between a sinning and a sinless being. It will
perhaps be said, that the difficulty is not so much
with the thing as with the way or manner in which
it is accomplished, namely, by the shedding of the
blood of Jesus. But when it is remembered, that
the blood cannot be separated from the divine, liv-

HARMONY OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

I49

ing, and eternal principle which is the life of the
blood, and without which the blood would not have
efficacy, it can hardly fail to relieve thoughtful and
conscientious minds. Many, encouraged by this in-
terior and deeper but necessary view, have hastened
to yield their hearts and lives to the mighty and re-
generating influences of the great principle, — the
principle which both creates and saves — that finds its
manifestation in the Cross. And then it is to be re-
membered further, that words in certain aspects of
them are things, and often in their control over the
human mind, are very powerful things.

In the case of many persons the long use of cer-
tain expressions in relation to the blood of Christ,
(words which have a providential and wise relation
to the first or sensuous development of man's nature,)
make it very difficult for them after a time to make
the distinction which has just now been referred to.
Nevertheless, the ultimate philosophy requires the
distinction to be made, and at the same time points
out the relation and unites and harmonizes the two.
And the Scriptures, when rightly interpreted and
when searched to their foundations, are not antagon-
istical, but harmonize, in this case as in all others,
with a right philosophy.

4. — Again, the doctrine of the first and second
birth and their relation to each other, (a matter

l$0 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

which has caused much perplexity,) not only har-
monizes with the statements of the Scriptures and
with outward facts ; but considered, as it truly is, as
a great mental and moral problem, vindicates its
claims to the highest wisdom. It makes man, not
a machine merely, moving no one knows how in the
iron tracks of a dead materialism, but a grand and
active reality in the universe, even in his first condi-
tion of self-hood and of self-asserting independence.

5. — Rome, too, had her teachers; Numa, the
founder of institutions and laws ; Camillus who an-
nounced the great truth, which Christianity has
verified, " adversce res admonuerunt religionum;"
Cato, who did right, " not to be seen to do it, but
because he could not help doing it ; " Cicero, the
eloquent and intuitional expounder of philosophical
problems; Seneca, who resisted the corruptions of a
degenerate age ; and among the long list of those
who announced the truth and struggled against
error, that wonderful bard of Mantua, whose beauti-
ful and sublime utterances were, in some sense, the
Gospel of his time and country. And all this is in
accordance with what the Apostle Paul has said of
the Gentiles, that they are a law unto themselves,
and show the works of the law written in their
hearts ; in other words, that God has made to all
men everywhere an inward moral revelation. It is

HARMON Y OF RELIGIO US OPINIONS. i 5 1

not surprising, therefore, that Sir James Mackintosh,
one of the eminent statesmen and philosophers of
modern times, says, in a learned discourse on the
Law of Nature and Nations, that " lawgivers and
statesmen, but above all, moralists and political
philosophers, may plainly discover, in all the useful
and beautiful variety of governments and institu-
tions, and under all the fantastic multitude of usages
and rites which have prevailed among men, the
same fundamental, comprehensive truths, the sacred
master principles, which are the guardians of human
society, recognized and revered, with few and slight
exceptions, by every nation upon earth." A view
which was anticipated, and which is sustained by a
multitude of facts and quotations, in the profound
volumes of Montesquieu and Grotius.

6. — It is thus we remember, with deep gratitude,
what God has done for the nations in the earliest
times; how He has borne with their sins, and has
always given them that kind and degree of instruc-
tion which was best suited to their situation. No
nation ever has been, or ever can be wholly forgot-
ten. The God of the Hebrews, although in some
respects with less intimate relations, was neverthe-
less the God of Greece and Rome. And history
abundantly shows, that the historical development
of those remarkable nations, including literature as

j ^ 2 ABSOL UTE RELIGION.

well as arms, and art as well as power, was precisely
adjusted, in time and circumstances, to the Hebrew
development. And when in the fulness of time the
Star of Bethlehem arose, which otherwise would
have shone only over the waters of Galilee and the
hills of Judea, it became the guiding light and the
illumination of the world, through the aiding influ-
ences of Greek and Roman civilization.

y. — This subject, of which we have thus given a
short and imperfect outline, is well worthy of the
attention of the Christian scholar. It is a subject
which can never be thoroughly mastered, except by
those who combine the learning of human schools
with a religious nature and deep religious experi-
ence. Learning, religion and philosophy must go
hand in hand in its development. It may require
the destruction or the re-adjustment of nations ; but
Christ as God incarnate in the great principles which
he taught and illustrated, and which are recognized
and affirmed by the highest reason, will at last as-
cend the height of his position and exercise his uni-
versal dominion.

President Edwards, in his. truly great work on
the History of Redemption, is right in giving us to
understand that God, as the living principle of the
ages, and especially in the great fact of his Incarna-
tion, is the key-note to the philosophy of history,

HARMONY OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 153

God's life knows no cessation of activity ; and his
wisdom and benevolence will always turn that activ-
ity in the right direction. The car of the universe
is not floating at random ; but under the Master's
hand is always tending to one great issue.
7*

CHAPTER XV.

Optimism.

I. — God rules. God is good. And He rules in
such a way that goodness can never be excluded.
In the end when events are connected both with
causes and results, all will be found for the best.
And this, expressed in few and simple terms, is what
is known historically as Optimism, — a doctrine
which not only has its foundation in the Absolute
Truth, but which is practically of so much impor-
tance that it is well entitled to careful considera-
tion.

2. — The subject may be argued and illustrated
from various points of view. It may be said per-
haps by some in a simple sentence, that if God is
supreme, and if at the same time his existence is
characterized by perfect goodness, the optimistic
result, which is identical with the greatest possible
good, necessarily follows. There cannot possibly
be any other. All things are and must be for the
best. This is a short argument, it is true, but it is

OPTIMISM. 155

of a nature to excite thought and perhaps to carry-
weight and conviction. During a long life I have
not been exempt from the trials which are the com-
mon allotment of men ; but I became early a disci-
ple in the optimistic school; and the bitter tears I
have sometimes shed have not prevented me from
saying most heartily and sincerely, all is welL And
I hope it will not be considered thoughtless or pre-
sumptuous to add, that those who are not able to
say this, and in whom the words do not express an
inwrought personal conviction, have yet something
of great practical value to learn.

In saying that all is for the best, it is well to
consider a moment how much is included in it. All
truth, all falsehood, all joy, all sorrow, all kindness,
all enmity, all reward, all punishment, all glory, all
shame, and whatever else enters in to make up the
moral constitution of the universe, when properly
understood in its principle and its results, and when
properly adjusted each to the other, contributes in
one way or another to the universal harmony, and
could not be left out without a loss to the universal
and highest happiness. And when this great an-
nouncement is fully and sincerely received on scrip-
tural and philosophical principles, as the teaching
alike of the uttered scriptural Word and of the Ab-
solute psychical reason, then the heart and the head,

I tj 6 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

both in their fears of danger and their experiences
of grief, find a pillow on which they can rest secure-
ly and rest forever.

3. — It will be asked is sin for the best? In an-
swering this question we are first required to answer
another which naturally precedes it, namely, — What
is the best constitution of the universe ? Is it one
which excludes* the possibility of all moral and re-
sponsible life, or one which admits and requires
such moral responsibility ? If in answering this
question, we accept the great fact of a moral and
responsible nature with all that is naturally involved
in it, we necessarily accept wrong or crime or sin as
a possibility, and may reasonably expect that it will
sometime have an existence. The analysis of the
operations of the human mind shows, that the idea
of right implies and necessitates that of wrong ; that
the idea of virtue in like manner implies and neces-
sitates that of vice ; so that it can always be said of
the man who does right, that he might have done
wrong ; and of the man who treads the path of vir-
tue, that it was possible for him to have gone in the
opposite direction. And therefore, if the existence
of right implies the possible existence of wrong, if
there can be no virtue without the possibility of its
opposite, if the extinction of crime in the sense of
its being an impossible thing involves the destruc-

OPTIMISM.

157

tion of all moral good, then I think we cannot hesi-
tate in saying, that those various evils which go
under the name of wrong, crime, vice, and the like,
taking into view their indirect relations and results,
must be accepted as parts of the universal plan and
are all for the best. So that sin itself, hateful as it
is, may be regarded in the light of a true philosophy
as a necessary result of the moral universe, and as
throwing light upon the character of God. What
idea should we have of the holiness of God, himself,
if sin were an impossibility and therefore a thing
unknowable ; and if we could not aid our concep-
tions by saying not merely that God is holy, but
that in being holy He hates sin ?

4. — And looking at the matter in another aspect,
we must not forget, that man considered in relation
to certain ends which are before him and as reach-
ing upward to such ends, is a developing or pro-
gressive, and not a fixed and stationary being.
And it is generally conceded that all progress, in
reaching its highest results, involves the fact of
exercise, practice, struggles, obstacles to be met,
and obstacles to be vanquished. Such are the laws
of being, that growth and inactivity are incompati-
ble ideas. It is involved in the mere fact of living,
that we must do battle in the great contest of life.
Christ himself assures us, that in the world we shall

158 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

have tribulation, and the Apostle Paul exhorts us to
fight the good fight of faith. But if moral evil is
excluded from the universe, then all such views are
out of place, and have no meaning. There is no
content, because there is nothing to contend with ;
and there is no growth, because there is none of
that spiritual wrestling, without which growth is un-
known. And therefore we say again, that Optimism
has a philosophical as well as scriptural foundation,
and that in the conflicts and trials of life, including
moral evils and moral conflicts, all is for the best.

5. — But supposing, says one, that moral evil, in
the contest which its existence necessarily implies,
should gain the victory, what is our situation then ;
and what becomes of the optimistic utterance.
And here it may be said, if we take the question in
the widest sense, that it involves what may be called
an impossible supposition. It is the affirmation of
all thought and all philosophy, the doctrine of all
the suggested or inspirational Scriptures of all ages
and all nations, the dying word of those who drink
hemlock, and perish in the flames, and bleed upon
the cross, the martyred teachers and guides of hu-
manity, that goodness taken in its widest sense,
bears in its bosom the seed of immortality and can
never be overthrown ; that it conquers now, and

OP TIM ISM.

159

conquers forever. Let that word stand ; humanity
will never part with it.

6. — But when we look at the contest, not in its
general aspect, but as we find it commenced and
progressing in individual cases, we must confess that
the battle sometimes goes against us. But we are
at liberty to add that it does so for a good reason ;
that it does so because we violate the laws of victory,
and therefore we can still hold to the great truth we
are considering. And the reason to which we refer
is the fact, never to be forgotten, that God is a real-
ity and holds a position which can never be set
aside. Not an impersonal God, who is rhetorically
great but practically nothing. Not a fatalistic God
— a God who is bound in chains and fetters; nor an
heathen idol God, who has as little intelligence and
power as the wood and stone of which he is fash-
ioned ; but a God, who clothes his infinitude with a
personal oversight and responsibility, who takes an
interest in all the things He has made and especially
in his own children, whom He is fashioning by the
process of trial into the perfection and brightness of
his own image. He has all strength, and He is al-
ways ready to render all needed assistance. But
while standing at our side and always ready with
his aid, He will not and cannot violate and des
troy our position as his intelligent and responsible

j5q absolute religion.

children, by violating our moral freedom. If we re-
ject his aid it necessarily follows that in some cases,
and I think in all, sin will have dominion over us ;
but on the other hand if we accept it and trust in it,
though our strength may be small, we never fail to
conquer. And in either case, whether we rise with
God or fall without Him, when we look carefully at
the principles involved, we can still say, it is all for
the best.

And thus it is that in these and all other things
the Absolute Religion, in aid of Revealed Religion,
stands ready, by processes of intelligent thought and
reason, to show that all the constituents of the
moral universe, when all facts, relations and issues
are reached, hold their position, not as an error or
an accident, but as the out-giving of the highest
wisdom, and as necessary elements in a system
which is stamped with perfection.

7# — But the question is sometimes asked, wheth-
er this view does not make God the author of
sin ; in other words, whether all moral evils of
whatever nature may not be laid directly and ex-
clusively to his account ? The fact supposed to be
involved in such inquiries, is as far as possible from
the truth. It is true that God cannot establish a
moral universe in which the highest and most glori-
ous results may be realized without admitting the

OPTIMISM. l6l

possibility of sin. But it is also true, both on philo-
sophic and scriptural principles, and also as shown
by the history of his dealings with the world, that
God takes all possible measures short of a violation
of man's freedom, which cannot be violated without
man's ceasing to be a man, to instruct man, to pro-
tect him against evils and to guide him to truth and
to good. So far from being the author of sin, God
shows himself both by his nature and his works to
be the enemy of sin; and also looking at the subject
in another aspect, that he is the friend of all good
or holiness, and the assertion that God is the au-
thor of sin in the sense in which the suggestion is
evidently made, is not only an error but a wrong, a
contempt of the highest goodness as well as a dis-
honor to unchangeable truth.

8. — The greatest of all moral teachers and phil-
osophers, I mean Christ himself, in a few wonderful
words, has announced the great truth which forms
the subject of this chapter. " // must needs be" he
says, " that offences come ; but woe unto that man
by whom the offence cometh." In other words, the
principles of the moral universe, being a " needs be"
are necessities. They exist, not by an arbitrary
command which would be consistent with the idea
that there was a time when they had no existence,
but because the " needs be " was in them ; and exist

1 62 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

therefore beyond time and beyond space, and with
eternity for their changeless home. There is no
wisdom back of them or above them which can orig-
inate or alter and improve, or make them in any
way otherwise than they are. And yet it is further
implied in this remarkable passage, that these ne-
cessities by which sin comes into the world, in point
of fact and in the view of those who have a true
interior insight, will be found consistent with per-
sonal responsibility and with the punishment of evil-
doers.

Nevertheless we are willing to admit that on
this great subject there may be and there probably
are difficulties which a finite mind cannot easily
solve. And to a mind that is in a right position,
this admission excites no surprise and causes no
sorrow, because it is one of those things which God
himself cannot remedy, unless He can unite things
which are contradictory and incompatible in their
nature, and make the finite identical with the Infi-
nite.

CHAPTER XVI.
The Objective and Subjective in Religion.

I.— It is sometimes thought that the Objective or
outward in religion, and the Subjective or inward,
are not only antagonistical, but are mutually exclu-
sive and destructive of each other. This I suppose
to be a mistake. They are neither destructive of
each other, nor are they necessarily antagonistical ;
but on the contrary, are essentially harmonious, al-
though it may sometimes be true, in consequence
of diversity of relations, that they are antagonistical
in appearance.

The question of the Objective and the Sub-
jective in religion, is prominently and, specifically the
question, stated in simpler terms, is God without us
or within us? Our answer is, that God is every
where ; but not in the same sense, nor with the
same efficacy, nor with the same results. And these
differences depend not merely upon the facts of the
divine nature, but partly upon other related facts,
incidents and experiences. Accordingly it may be

t64 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

said as a truth, that irreligion necessitates objectiv-
ity ; because, from the very fact of being what it is,
it closes the heart and excludes the divine entrance.
The irreligious or Adamic man, or man under the
influence of inordinate self-hood, and with the spir-
itual eye almost closed with the Adamic incrusta-
tions, can see only the objective or outward God.
But under the more favorable influences of Christi-
anity and with a wider and truer vision for which he
ought to be grateful, he sees Him under a human
form, elevated to the position of a throne and sway-
ing a sceptre. But He sits there nevertheless, what-
ever the degree of his elevation or glory, as an ob-
jective or outward God. But God as thus present-
ed, is not to be regarded as wanting in reality ; nor
as a reality not accordant with the facts of a sound
philosophy. The true God is universal ; but the
Adamic eye, or the eye which sees only from the
stand-point of its own personal interests, can see God
only under the law of its own perceptivity ; and lo-
cates Him and circumscribes Him with the limita-
tions, which are reflected from its own nature. And
thus it is that the sinner sees God outwardly, be-
cause the fact of sinfulness is a decree of banishment,
and it is a logical sequence of such a sight, that he
not only sees, but fears and trembles.

2. — It should be remembered however, that God

OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE IN RELIGION. 165

objective is not a different God, but differently seen ;
not located and limited in his distant place by his
essential nature, but because He will not enter the
selfish heart; and the selfish heart, therefore, can
only see Him in the distance. But it is better, far
better, that He should thus be seen, than not seen
at all. It is the beginning of a new thought ; it is
the incipiency of searching and often terrible convic-
tions ; it is the opening and revelation in the soul of
that which makes an unbelieving Felix tremble.

3. — Such is the God of the sinner, a God true to
the relations under which the sinner sees him ; seen
at a distance, because He is distant ; seen in exclu-
sion, because He is excluded ; seen in anger, because
it is right and just that He should be angry. But
under the appliances of new truths and such influ-
ences as God can exercise consistently with the sin-
ner's freedom, and especially in connection with his
mediatorial manifestations, He begins to present
himself in accordance with the sinner's altered men-
tal position and wants, in the attributes of forgive-
ness, mercy and love. He expands to the mental
vision just in proportion as the mental vision en-
larges itself to perceive. And in this expansion by
the laws of spiritual insight, He comes nearer and
nearer, till at last instead of being excluded and
kept at a distance, He begins to enter and take up

! 66 AB SOL U TE ' RE LIGION.

his abode in the soul itself, and to find his locality,
not as a God afar off, but as a real dweller in the
sacred and spiritual home of holy thoughts and holy
dispositions. It is in harmony with the doctrine of
these statements, that the late Dr. Payson, of Maine,
in speaking of his personal experience, says, " the
Sun of Righteousness has been gradually drawing
nearer and nearer, appearing larger and brighter as
He approached.'' And when God has thus changed
his position from God outward in the heavens to
God inward in the Spirit, we have a rational and to
some extent satisfactory explanation of the expres-
sion ' God subjective ' / — in other words, a God inte-
rior, a God in psychical possession, a God dwelling
in the soul.

There is therefore, a foundation for the terms
Objective and Subjective in religion, although they
sound somewhat crude and inharmonious to an
Anglo-Saxon ear; and they are terms which have a
real and substantial significancy ; word-symbols of
great and essential religious facts, though not facts
which are realized at the same period in the mind's
history ; and which are harmonized with each other
by the adjustment of additional facts and additional
relations.

4. — There is an incidental topic which seems to
merit a brief notice. The statement is found in

OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE IN RELIGION, ify

certain philosophical speculations, though some-
times appearing merely in the form of a suggestion,
that the subjective experience, when carried to its
highest results, requires and necessitates the u iden-
tification of the subject and object, of the worship-
per and the worshipped ; " in other words, that
man in becoming sanctified, or as it is sometimes
expressed "divinized" through the presence and
reigning power of the Holy Ghost, ceases to be
man. But this view, which would readily be ac-
cepted in the doctrines of Pantheism, has the as-
pect, to say the least, of being a hasty and erroneous
generalization ; leading to injurious and fatal results.
It is the confounding of identity of nature with
identity of forms, attributes and relations. The
sunbeam is not the same with the sun ; the drop of
water- is not the same with the ocean ; the morning
zephyr is not the same thing with the wild, sweep-
ing whirlwind. Everywhere, in all the realms of
nature, we find the same essentiality of nature, com-
bined with differences of manifestation and relations,
which divide that essential oneness, that divinely
central and inseparable brotherhood, into distinct
and beautiful and permanent individualisms. Paul
did not cease to be Paul, because he asserted and
asserted truly, that Christ lived in him. The pos-
session of a divine nature, which is the duty and the

l6$ ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

privilege of every one, does not make him a Deity ;
which, notwithstanding the ingenious speculations
of the ancient Hindoos, or of the Neo-Platonic
Alexandrine schools, or of their more modern fol-
lowers, seems to the truly Christian mind, not only
adverse to the Scriptures, but both a philosophical
and physical impossibility. Let it be understood
and remembered, that diversity of life is as much a
truth of the universe as essentiality of life ; and
angels, and all holy beings who may reach that high
stature and glory of existence, will be angels still.
Absorption into God, as a permanent and universal
result, would be the cessation and death of God
himself; whose very element and essentiality of life,
is its tendency to out-flowing and manifested com-
munication.

CHAPTER XVII.

Unities and Diversities,

I. — It is not to be supposed, that all diversities
are disunities. On the contrary, unity in diversity,
a central and life-giving principle with variations in
manifestation, is a great philosophical announce-
ment ; and justly regarded as one among the most
interesting which have been propounded for con-
sideration. There are many rivers, but they flow to
one ocean ; many planets, but one central sun ;
many nerves, but having their source in the central
brain ; many pulsations, but they come from one
heart. Everywhere, but oftentimes with compara-
tive subordinations and in separate cycles of exist-
ence and movement, we find this great fact of a
central unity, with its out-going but correlated di-
versities. Writers on aesthetics, for instance, teach
us, that amid all the varieties of outward form and
beauty, which manifest themselves in the different
schools of architecture and painting, there are cer-
tain common principles which underlie them all ;
8

iy0 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

and which secures in different and distant ages and
countries, the permanency of their power over the
human mind. Applying the great principle before
us to our moral and religious nature, and with the
object of briefly noticing its connection with a living
Christianity, and also some of its bearings on na-
tions, we proceed now to remark, that there may be
diversities which characterize the intellectual action,
and which attach especially to that part of the
mind ; but which, nevertheless, will be found to
be consistent with a high degree of unity in the
more interior and affectional nature. In other
words, there may be differences and conflicts of the
intellect combined Avith unity of the heart.

2. — The statement just made seems to us to
be justified by a correct knowledge of our mental
constitution. It is generally conceded, that our
comparative views or knowledge of things, are deter-
mined in part by the comparative strength of our
intellectual powers ; and in part also by the stand
point or intellectual position, in which we happen
to be when those powers are exercised. In regard
to most objects of knowledge, especially objects of
outward knowledge, it is well understood that every
one, saying nothing of the amount or specific char-
acter of his perceptive power, holds a position differ-
ent in some respects from every other person ; and

UNITIES AND DIVERSITIES. 171

that this circumstance alone, without taking the
interior causes of differences into account, must
necessarily lay the foundation of very different re-
sults. If two men, for instance, placed in quite
different positions, are looking at a building of va-
ried architectural proportions and beauty, it is
found impossible for them, even if they have the
same powers of perception, to take the same view.
To each of the two, the view which he takes is a
true one, considered relatively to the extent of his
own faculties and the position from which he exer-
cises them ; but it is more or less different from
that of the other. Such is the intellectual law in
the case.

3. — Upon this general basis of the laws of knowl-
edge, without going into more specific statements
and limitations, which a full discussion might call
for, we propose to make a few practical remarks.
And the first is, that there is a philosophical as well
as a Scriptural foundation for the great idea, which
awaits a wider development than it has hitherto
known of Christian unity. It is important to us as
Christians, aiming at the highest results of Chris-
tianity, to understand and remember, that the prin-
ciple, which applies in so many other cases, has a
specific application to ourselves ; and that intellect-
ual differences, in being to some extent a necessity,

I72 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

do not and cannot in themselves considered, and to
the extent at least of their necessary existence, fur-
nish a justifiable obstacle to love. Indeed, looking
at the matter philosophically, have we not some rea-
son for saying that differences are the foundation
of love ? If we were all formed alike, and looked
alike and were alike in all other respects, the many
would be merged in one ; everything would be iden-
tical ; and the fact of loving would cease because
there would be no opportunity of loving. But with-
out pressing this point, let us* remember that God,
in the most true and important sense, loves all be-
ings and seeks the good of all, notwithstanding the
amazing diversities which exist. And if God thus
throws the arms of his affections around those, who
are constituted with intellectual differences and who,
by the necessities of their position, exercise these
differences in different ways and with different re-
sults, then those, who are born into the true and
full life of God, and who love as God loves, may be
expected to have power to surmount these differen-
ces also, and to harmonize the conflicts and antag-
onisms of thought by means of the more interior
unities of affection. And hence it is, that the Apos-
tle Paul, in connection with that unity of heart
which binds the soul to Christ and which consolidates
the great Christian brotherhood into the same unity

UNITIES AND DIVERSITIES. 773

of life, argues with a sublimity of thought as sound
in philosophy as it is true in religion, that the out-
ward distinctions of bond and free, of Greek and Jew,
of male and female, of circumcision and uncircum-
cision, of Barbarian and Scythian, all involving more
or less the intellectual and incidental differences of
thought and culture and practical life, are merged
and lost sight of in that grand and essential unity.
Gal. iii: 28. Coloss. iii : 11. And hence it happened,
after the great day of Pentecost, that Parthians and
Medes and Elamites and Phrygians and Egyptians
and Lybians and Cretans and Arabians, all uttering
the discordancies of different languages, and all
modified intellectually by great differences of thought,
and by the training of their different situations, were
nevertheless in their more interior nature baptized
into one spirit.

And hence it happens also, as we learn from
time to time, that modern missionaries in heathen
lands, meeting together in the presence of great
necessities which swell within them the tide of the
soul's Essential Life, find its increasing waves of
holy love mounting upward and upward, and thus
overflowing and sweeping away the divisive im-
pulses of the intellect and the conventional lines of
sectarian separation.

4. — Again, the doctrine of unity in diversity,

!74 % ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

when understood in the principles which lie at its
foundation, helps us in the matter of forgiveness
and of love to our enemies. When persons are
pressed on the subject of an inward holy life, and
the example of the Elder Brother is set before them
as an example to be followed in all respects, they
frequently stumble at the requisition to love their
enemies, and to do good to those who have done
injury to themselves. But let them do what they
ought to do, and be at once what Christ would have
them to be ; and they will not fail to see the truth
and beauty of this great command. If, under the
influences of the living truth, they boldly and fully
follow Christ in the inward regeneration, it may
always be said that their enemies smite them be-
cause they do not understand them. In other
words, acting from the sphere of the. intellect, and
beholding things from the lower plane which con-
stitutes their stand-point, they aim their blows at
the creations of their own imagination. In their
darkened vision, perverted by their own selfishness,
or by the discordancies of a necessitated position,
they mistake ministering angels who come with
messages of love, for powers and principalities of
evil who threaten them with harm. The Roman
soldiers who thrust their spears at the " man of
sorrows," did not know the truth and purity and

UNITIES A ND DI VE RSI TIES. \ j 5

benevolence of Him whose blood they sought.
And hence his glorious nature was both prompted
by benevolence, and, in recognizing the laws of
man's mental constitution, harmonized with the
philosophical truth of things, loyal alike and un-
changeable to the justice of truth and the divinity
of goodness, when He uttered that memorable say-
ing : " Father, forgive them, for they knoiv not ivhat
they do?

5. — And we may remark further, looking^ at the
subject in its political and national relations, that we
find in the principles which have been laid down,
a philosophical foundation for the great political
doctrine so long and warmly contested, of a tolera-
tion of opinions, considered as a political and constitu-
tional right. The human mind, if we have been
correct in our positions, is so constituted and so
situated in the circumstances of its action, that oft-
entimes it necessarily takes different views. If it so
happens, therefore, at any time and under any cir-
cumstances, that we cannot make our neighbors
understand things as we understand them, either
through our incapacity to communicate or their
incapacity to receive, we must calmly bear with it.
They are not, on the ground of such incapacity, to
be the subjects of sneers, of sarcasm, of unfeeling
rebuke, of imprisonments, of tortures, of social os-

iy6 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

tracism, or of anything inconsistent with the for-
bearance and charity which such a state of things
obviously requires. When men, therefore, fought
for the toleration of religious opinions in the Eng-
lish Revolution of 1640 and in the American Revo-
lution of 1776, and in other memorable historical
periods, they fought for a great necessity of their
nature. And accordingly it is well to understand
and practically insist, that this great principle of
toleration is not merely a truth of the sword which
bloody battles have established, and which other
battles might unsettle and abrogate; but a truth
of the highest reason, and of perpetual obligation.

6. — And again, the principle under consideration
has a connection with what has been called by a
modern but expressive term, the " solidarity' of na-
tions. Whatever diversities may exist among na-
tions politically or otherwise, the law of the universe
which philosophers have denominated Unity in Di-
versity, which lies back of all diversities, and which
in this particular case touches nations, because it
touches individuals, requires that they must march in
harmony with the unifying centre. Diversified as
they may be by monarchies or senates, or by other
civil and political variations, all nations have a " soli-
darity " or community of life, because a nation is a
unified or consolidated man, and because all men who

UNITIES AND DIVERSITIES.

177

go to make the national or consolidated existence,
are born alike in the image of God ; and not only
have certain inalienable rights, as Jefferson's great
declaration has affirmed, but are the subjects of in-
alienableobligations •, and arc bound together by inalien-
able ties. When the Roman audience loudly ap-
plauded the great sentiment, " Homo sum ; hutndni
nihil a me alienum puto" their hearts vibrated to the
pulsations of that common life, which under all its
separations makes humanity one. Such is the foun-
dation of the great law of solidarity, which, while it
recognizes diversities, subordinates them to itself as
the great central principle. It is under the prompt-
ings and influence of this beneficent principle, that
nations, as if by a common impulse, are struggling to
realize a community of interests in all cases where it
is possible, and by all means which render it possible ;
such as a common system of weights and measures, a
common coinage, a common postal system, the ocean
telegraph, the removal of the passport system, the
extinction of what remains of feudalism, the recog-
nition of the rights of different races notwithstand-
ing the diversities of color, the expansion of
nationalities in harmony with the aspirations of a
common name and history, the extension of the
ballot, the revision of the doctrines of naturaliza-
tion, international exhibitions of the arts, the settle-
8*

!^8 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

ment of national difficulties by means of Congresses
of nations, the introduction of the principle of Arbi-
tration into treaties, together with the hope ulti-
mately, of a permanent international Congress and
a Court of nations, and also of a universal language.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Viezu of the Doctrine of Sacrifices.

The doctrine of the ancient Sacrifices reveals to
us one of the forms in which God contends against
satan, in which the life of good strives against the
life of evil. God's great redemption plan has been
to restore men from the life of self, in which they
were destroying themselves to the universal brother-
hood. In their inordinate self-hood they seized
everything they could lay their hands upon, and
held it all with the firmest possible grasp ; the fruits
of the earth, the herds of the fields, doves, oxen,
sheep, goats, camels. And they held everything
they could thus get, not for the good of the object,
but for their own good — not to communicate but to
appropriate it. They made everything a sacrifice, a
holocaust, a great burnt offering to their own lusts.
With a view to break in upon the principality and
dominion of selfishness, God commanded them, in the
destruction which they made and were determined
to make of all fruits and animals, that they should

l8o ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

not appropriate everything to themselves, but offer
a part to God. On God's part it was merely a form
of proceeding. Under the form of an offering to
God, it was really an offering for their own good.

In this way they made a beginning in that great
lesson, which all must learn if they would be saved.
They were taught, that this partial sacrifice was the
antetype or forerunner of something which was to
come. They were yet to learn the nature of a true
sacrifice — its extent, its possibility, its necessity. In
its full extent, a true sacrifice is not the giving up
of a part or the withholding of a part, but the sacri-
fice of all.

This is a thing possible to be done, otherwise it
would not be required to be done. Luke 14 : 26.
God incarnated himself as man, in order that he
might illustrate in a way which all could understand,
the nature, the extent, and the possibility of that
sacrifice, which it is necessary for man to make in
order to become a holy man.

The true Christ sacrifice is a perpetual sacrifice.
It is a law which proceeds from God, that the higher
or more advanced existences give up themselves to
the service and good of others who are lower. The
death of Christ on the cross for the good of men was
not merely an isolated fact, but the announcement
and the verification of an universal and permanent

VIEW OF THE DOCTRINE OF SACRIFICES. jg!

principle. And this principle is, that the Christ-
sacrifice, which is holy love in its essential and celes-
tial uses, never ceases ; and that redemption never
ends.

The divine brotherhood and sisterhood of Christ
scattered up and down in the earth, and who in these
last days are being gathered together out of all
tongues and tribes and kindreds of men, and out of
all separate forms and beliefs, still suffer to some ex-
tent in the garden of Gethsemane or upon the Cross.
The inheritors of Christ's nature, it is a matter of
course that they are and must be, the inheritors of
Christ's sufferings, so far as they come in contact
with evil, and so far as in the prosecution of this
conflict, they are called upon to labor and endure.
The Apostle Paul, in speaking of himself, uses these
expressions, " Who now rejoice in my sufferings for
you, and fill up that which is behind of the suffer-
ings of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake which
is the church." Coloss. I : 24. The Apostle Peter, in
his first general Epistle, calls upon the followers of
Christ to " rejoice, inasmuch as they are partakers
of Christ's sufferings."

The Christ-spirit is always antagonistic to the
unprogressive and selfish spirit, and therefore always
labors, always endures, always suffers, yet always re-
joices, always triumphs. Its triumph is an eternal

1 82 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

triumph, because holy love is infinite in its resources,
and selfishness is not ; — at the same time it must be
said, that the contest in which it is engaged is a
never-ending contest ; because in a moral universe,
which is also necessarily a free universe, the series of
the second or perfected births, in which the imperfect
and evil give place to the good and perfect, consid-
ered as a part of the divine order, and as a necessary
step in progressional development, is as much a per-
manent fact and truth as the truth of the divine ex-
istence.

When we reach the true interior sense of the
Scriptures, we get at true unchangeable principles.
Christ saves us by his blood ; his blood is his life,
and he who gives up his life gives all. And it is
thus that we can understand the doctrine of grace,
in distinction from the doctrine of merit by works.
We are saved by Christ, in other words wTe are saved
by grace or love, which is Christ's positive or essen-
tial nature, and this not of ourselves, it is the gift
of God. The merit is in Love — and not in ourselves.

But the question still remains, — how did Christ's
sacrifice save sinners? The common answer is, that
he magnified the law and made it honorable. And
what is the law? In general and somewhat abstract
terms it is, that we shall love God with all our
heart ; and our neighbor as ourselves. In other

VIE IV OF THE DOCTRINE OF SACRIFICES. 183

words we are to do good ; the higher are to watch
over the lower ; the strong are to sustain the weak ;
those who have knowledge are to enlighten the ig-
norant ; we must and shall bestow upon others in
proportion as we receive. This was the law which
Christ divinely illustrated and magnified. He not
only announced the law as Moses had done before ;
but more than Moses did, he fulfilled it. He gave
up his life from an earnest and sincere desire to do
good to all because he himself was Love. Truly the
great Law of Love was honored.

9. — The universe, so far as it exhibits itself in
the personalities and forms of things, in distinction
from the Esse or essential being of things, is not a
completion but a development; — an infinite pro-
gression. It goes on continually from one step or
plane of advancement to another. If it should stop
in its progress it would necessarily fall into extinc-
tion. In ceasing to progress, it would become lim-
ited ; it would have a boundary of existence ; it
would no longer be exhaustless in its resources ; and
therefore, as it would be a necessity that its life
would feed upon itself, it would rapidly waste its
possessions. Progress, therefore, continued progress
may be regarded as a necessity. To stand still is to
perish.

10. — And further it seems to be evident and is

!g4 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

generally conceded, that progress involves the idea
both of successions in time and of successions in de-
gree ; one thing going before and another coming
after ; one being below and another, which is the
antecedent in time, being higher, sphere above
sphere, and these spheres again having their distinct
higher and lower circles or mansions; human na-
tures, spiritual or angelic natures, seraphic or super-
angelic natures ; existences of names unknown with
their appropriate surroundings, progressively and
endlessly developing in the direction of the Infinite,
and yet never reaching and never becoming identical
with the Infinite.

CHAPTER XIX.

Growth of the Idea of God.

I. — It is difficult to exaggerate the importance
which is to be attached to a correct idea of God,
considered as the embodiment and the personality
of the essential living element. If our views on
other points should be found to be correct but
should prove incorrect here, the error would be
likely to vitiate and weaken everything else.

2. — And the reason is, that men will almost nec-
essarily fashion themselves, in their principles and
in their practice, into the image of God, as that im-
age exists in their minds. Accordingly in adopting
a false conception of God, if they thus substitute to
themselves as an object of love and imitation, an
unholy or satanic being instead of the true God, it
will be found, that in their highest aspirations and
efforts, they will only aim and labor to make them-
selves evil and satanic, instead of aspiring to a truly
holy or divine nature. If for instance, the God of a
people is Moloch,— a conception of God which

r 86 ABSOL UTE RELIGION.

authorizes and requires extreme cruelty — it will be
found that the people, assimilating themselves to
their conception of what is divine, will adopt and
perpetuate the infamous cruelties, whatever they
may be which their god approves.

The account of systems of worship, and of the
various and numerous gods, which men have adored
in various ages of the world and in different places,
constitute a deeply interesting but most painful
chapter in human history. The early portions of
biblical history abound in facts and allusions to
which we now refer. The Scriptures make frequent
mention of the idolatrous worship of the nations,
that originally inhabited Palestine and the countries
in its vicinity. Moloch was a god of the Canaanites
and the Phsenicians. References are made to the
worship of this cruel deity in Jeremiah, 7; 31, 32;
19: 6-14; in Isaiah 30: 33, and also in the second
book of Kings, 23 : 10. Baal also, so often mention-
ed in the Bible, was one of the deities of the
Phaenicians and was worshipped especially at Tyre^
Human sacrifices were sometimes offered to this
god ; but less frequently than to Moloch. Baal-
Peor was a god or goddess of the Moabites. An-
other of the Moabitish deities is mentioned in the
Scriptures under the name of Chemosh, Numb. 21 :
29, Jer. 48: 7, 13. The calf which is mentioned in

GROWTH OF THE IDEA OF GOD. \%j

Exodus 32 : 4, 5, and the two calves erected by Jer-
oboam in the cities of Dan and Bethel, were evidently
made in imitation of the Egyptian deities, the Apis
worshipped at Memphis and the Muevis at Heliop-
olis. In some parts of Egypt, the region in the
neighborhood of the ancient Sycopolis, the wolf was
an object of worship. The northern nations of Eu-
rope, those in particular inhabiting the region of,
the modern Denmark and Sweden, formed their idea
of God by the deification of the warrior. Their
highest ideal of man was the man of violence and of
blood ; and the being, that was conceived by them
as filling most completely this ideal, by violence and
bloodshed, was their God. His name was Odin.
His residence was in the city of Misgard. His pal-
ace was Valhalla. Odin was the god of battles.
The souls of heroes who had fallen in battle, ascend-
ed to the highest places in the celestial city ; — re-
newing around the halls of Valhalla the pleasures
of mimic war, and drinking the Scandinavian nectar,
from vessels formed from the skulls of their enemies.
The adventures of Odin are found in the Odda and
Voluopa. The sword of Odin and the great ham-
mer of Thor, may be accepted as the appropriate
symbols of the early northern deity; — the creation
of imbrutcd intellects and ferocious hearts, and
which reacted upon its own source,and in its turn

1 88 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

consolidated and established revenge and inhuman-
ity.

The question now returns, what is God ? What
is the idea which we may properly and truly attach
to Him ? And we remark in the first place, that
the God whom the holy heart loves is not a limited
or human form, — such as the human mind in its
weakness is apt to frame and adopt ; — a form seated
somewhere high in the heavens, occupying some ele-
vated chair of state, and holding in his hand the
sceptre or sword of authority. This undoubtedly, is
an improvement of that low and demoralizing belief,
which finds him embodied in the lowest of the brute
animals, or which locates him in an idol made of
wood or stone ; although it is still a conception of
God, which differs from this very low one, more in
degree than in nature. Such a limited and formal
conception of God — no matter how dignified and
venerable the mental image under which he is rep-
resented— is at variance with the letter and the
spirit of the Bible; and compared with the true con-
ception of the Infinite Mind, is low, materialistic, and
unsatisfying.

3. — The God whom the holy soul loves, is not
the mere abstract idea of God. For although we
may and do form such an abstract idea, yet it should
be remembered, that the object for which the idea

GROWTH OF THE IDEA OF GOD. 189

stands, is not a mere abstraction like the idea which
represents it, but is something positive and real.
Nor can we in consequence of our limited and finite
nature, love God even as an infinite positive Being,
unless we at the same time make him present in his
works, and love him and worship him in his works.

The true God is God present, living, operating or
in a word incarnate, in the universe of things; not
identical with it, but wrapping the universality of
created existences about Him as the clothing of his
life, and embodying himself most distinctly and fully,
in that which has the greatest receptivity of the
Divine ; and therefore becoming more and more
fully incarnated in man, in proportion as he pro-
gresses in the divine life, and can say, Christ is
within mc.

Now with such a God and thus received, it is
easy to see, what a change must soon take place in
the affairs of the world. If man could in any way
be led fully to believe, that his brother man-is a man-
ifestation of God, that the Divine is in him and
hovers over him and around him, — always to some
extent and always endeavoring to incarnate itself
mere and more, — would it be possible for him to treat
his fellow-man as he has done; to cast him into
dungeons, to tear him with pincers, to burn him in
the flames, to smite him and crush him in bloody

190

ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

wars ? Would it be in his thought and his nature,
thus to smite and destroy man, as the history of the
world shows that he has done, if he could be led to
the truth of the divine locality, and understood, that
God could and would not be separated from man ?
Truly recognizing God as existent in humanity,
would it be possible for him to hold his brother man
in slavery or to maltreat him and injure him in any
way whatever? And reverencing God also in wo-
man, could he make her the slave of all servile
drudgeries, brutalizing her body through the brutal-
ization of the intellect and the heart, and through
long ages, as he has done, causing her to droop her
head in sadness and to shed tears of blood ? It is
obvious what great and glorious results would fol-
low from the adoption of a true idea of God, not
only concerning man and woman, but also concern-
ing the beast of the field and the fowls of the air.

CHAPTER XX.

Of the Satisfaction of Divine Justice.

I. — Christ suffers and dies for sinners. A substi-
tute for transgressors is found in the crucified Son
of Mary. Divine Justice is satisfied. The atonement
is made. Such are the expressions which are often
heard in the creeds and teachings of the existing
churches. Similar expressions are found in the
Bible. " He is wounded for our transgressions ; he
is bruised for our iniquities." " Behold the Lamb
of God, who takcth away the sins of the world."
The true and interior meaning of such expressions,
the meaning which is adapted to that higher devel-
opment of the human race which exists at the pres-
ent time, — may be supposed to be as follows.

2. — When we say that Christ suffered on the
Cross, or suffered in any way, we make the inquiry
in connection with such expressions, as we are con-
stantly making the inquiry in other connections,
Who and what is Christ? Christ is not merely an
outward form, not merely a physical organization ;

Iq2 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

but a living principle, a spiritual Essentiality or Di
vine Love ; Christ not only was but is. The Christ-
spirit — we do not say every man who bears out-
wardly the name of Christ, — but the Christ-spirit, the
Essential Christ, does everything and suffers every-
thing which can be justly done and suffered for
transgressors. This is right. And nothing short
of this is right. The Christ-spirit compared with
any and every other principle of life, is the spirit of
all knowledge, of all truth, of all joy, all glory.
Freed from the disturbing and blinding influences
of self, it sees where the sinner does not see ; it
knows where the sinner does not know. It has
strength where the transgressor is weak. It has
heaven in its present and its future, with the knowl-
edge, that the sinner has no heritage of happiness,
either now or hereafter if he continues in his sins
It is right therefore that the Essential Christ should
suffer. It was right that he should suffer upon the
Cross. It is right that he should suffer now.

4. — Divine Justice, the divine perception of the
absolute right, requires that the true people of God
should sympathize with, should act and should more
or less suffer, for the good of sinners. Divine Jus-
tice is not satisfied, and cannot be satisfied, till this
divine ransom of toil and suffering, — without which
the Christ-spirit would fail to be the Christ-spirit, —

THE SATISFACTION OF DIVINE JUSTICE. 193

is fully paid. The child of God who is not willing
to act and suffer for God's cause, by doing good to
others who stand in need of his labors, cannot claim
to be the child of God. And therefore it may be
truly said, that Divine Justice in such a case is not
satisfied. When Christ died justice was satisfied.
He did that which it was right or just for him to do.

5. — At this point it is possible, that a simple illus-
tration may aid us in understanding the subject. A
person for instance is a physiologist. Through the
good providence of God which has watched, over
him and instructed him, he has been made acquaint-
ed with the mechanism and laws of the human con-
stitution ; and understands perfectly what injurious
and destructive results follow from intemperance in
eating and drinking. I think that such a man is
bound, in other words, that " divine justice" requires
him to communicate such information to his brother
man for his good ; although it may cost him time,
labor, opposition, rebuke, persecution. And when
he has done his duty in this respect, then and not
till then divine justice is satisfied.

If Christ, with all his knowledge and love, with
his deep insight into the causes and consequences
of sin, had failed to stand up as a teacher, or had
failed to verify his teachings by patient endurance
and suffering even unto death, he could not have
9

194

ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

said, " I have finished the work which Thou gavest
me to do." John 17: 4. And it was in this way,
that Christ or the Essential Love Life satisfied, what
the divine or perfect justice required. A very dif-
ferent sort of satisfaction and nearly the reverse of
what it is generally supposed to be.

6. — Now all who are Christ's people, just so far
as they are like Christ, possess the true Christ na-
ture which is love, and are called to proclaim the
truth, although this necessarily brings them into an-
tagonism with error, which involves in the course of
the conflict, more or less of trial and suffering. It is
a great truth, therefore a permanent truth, if God's
people under any circumstances fail to labor and
suffer for the good of transgressors up to the light
which is given them, the divine justice fails to be
satisfied. The cross therefore, namely, labor and
suffering for the good of others, becomes a perma-
nent fact, a divine and unchangeable necessity un-
der a government of which God who is Love is the
great Centre.

CHAPTER XXI.

The Doctrine of a Judgment affirmed by Absolute
Religion.

I. — It is undoubtedly a doctrine of Christianity,
and is the accepted opinion of the sects or denomi-
nations which exist under the name of Christians,
that man both in his actions and character is sus-
ceptible of being judged ; and that such judgment
will certainly come upon him. And such, in the
grand harmony of Christian truth with the highest
human intelligence, is the affirmation of the Abso-
lute Religion.

2. — And first we will consider the subject in re-
spect to individuals. We find evidence that men
individually, that every man no matter what may be
his situation, is properly the subject of a judicial pro-
cess, and cannot by any possibility escape being ul-
timately brought to judgment, in the great fact that
he is created with a judge in his own bosom. Con-
science considered in connection with the intellect,

I96 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

which furnishes the facts upon which its decisions
are founded, constitutes a tribunal which exists in
perpetual session ; and out of its own interior and
wonderful resources, consummates the verdict which
it gives of a good or evil action, of a good or evil
life, with a correspondent reward on the one hand,
or a correspondent punishment on the other. Some-
times the reward or punishment is realized in out-
ward good or outward sorrow, in the deprivation of
external comforts or in the enrichment of external
gifts; but whether this be the case or not, the rec-
ompenses of the soul in one form or the other, the
joys or sorrows of conscience can never fail.

3. — And this is so because it cannot be other
wise. If holiness or justice is a part of God's na-
ture,— and without this God ceases to be God, —
then it is impossible for him to create a being, with
the voluntary and intelligent capacities of good and
evil, without at the same time making him responsi-
ble for such good and evil. Man is judged because
the tribunal exists in himself; and the tribunal ex-
ists there, because God in making man could not be-
come a contradiction to himself; and could not act
in violation or neglect of the eternal and essential
principles which lie hidden in his own divine na-
ture.

4. — And let us look further, at the practical re-

DOCTRINE OF A JUDGMENT AFFIRMED. jgy

suits. If man were not liable to be brought to judg-
ment, and were not restrained and regulated in his
conduct by the knowledge of this liability, what
conflict and wrong and fraud and oppression would
be likely to follow ! In such a state of things,
where everything would be regulated by power in-
dependent of justice, existence itself would cease to
be a blessing.

Looking at the subject in whatever way we will,
the voice of eternal reason giving itself utterance in
the Absolute Religion, agrees with Revealed Reli-
gion in the fact, that the book of the judgment is,
and from the nature of the case must be opened;
that the sentence is and must be executed ; that
under the figurative expressions of the Scriptures,
as well as under the dogmatic formulas of religious
creeds, there lies a great and unchangeable verity
which cannot be unheeded.

5. — And it remains to be added that men are not
only judged in their individual capacity, but they
necessarily take their share of the judgment which
falls upon all corporate bodies and associations and
communities, of which they are members. The life
of such associations and communities is made up of
individual life ; the responsibility of such complex
bodies, formed for ends which involve moral results,
is the aggregate of individual responsibilities ; and

g ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

the reward which' attends the associated good-doing,
and the punishment which follows the associated
evil-doing, reach all the individuals.

And therefore it may be said as a philosophical
affirmation, and it is found to be true as a matter of
fact, that families and neighborhoods are judged,
that towns and cities are judged, that all business
corporations are judged, that nations are judged, that
worlds are judged. And thus it will be found, that
the great and overshadowing fact of judgment ex-
tends to everything which is capable of being judged ;
although it is true, that it necessarily varies in the
form which it puts on, and in its degree, with the
great variety of things, and the modification and
character of things to which it applies ; but taking
place under the adjustments of a Being who never
errs, the judgment always is just.

CHAPTER XXII.

The Doctrine of Heaven and Hell.

I. — It is a fact worthy of consideration because it
involves principles that have a permanent foundation,
that all religions have their heaven and hell. The
Absolute Religion which, though really first in time,
comes latest in the historical succession of religions,
and which tries to expound those that have gone
before it and to adjust them to each other, teaches
that heaven and hell are facts of mental experience,
in other words are states of the mind, rather than lo-
calities. It is true that the Absolute Religion, in
taking this important position, does not necessarily
deny locality as something which is predicablc of
such facts of experience. And it docs not do this,
for the simple and sufficient reason, that locality is a
necessary incident of finitcness ; and that it is im-
possible to have an idea of finite beings, without
having an idea of the place which they occupy.
But the Absolute doctrine though it does not by any

200 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

means exclude the consideration of locality or place,
is understood to deal primarily and chiefly with the
intrinsic or essential nature, rather than with the
forms and incidents of things.

2. — It is not easy to give definitions which will
be satisfactory to all. But perhaps it will be suffi-
cient to say, that Heaven in its essential nature, is
that state of inward experience which excludes
doubt and sorrow, and which is the subject of all that
happiness, which results from a harmony with the
immutable law of right, including as the necessary
result of such harmony, the approbation of God,
and full and happy communion with him.

It is not necessary to assert, however, that this is
the best statement which is possible to be made of
the absolute or essential heaven. It is sufficient to
know, that the statement embracing essentially these
ideas cannot vary greatly from these terms.

3. — And now we proceed to say, that the doctrine
under consideration results necessarily from the fact,
that the subjects or inhabitants of the state called
Heaven, are spiritual or mental beings. It is very
true, and it is one of the results of the additional fact
that they are finite beings, that they are clothed in
bodily or material forms ; but there is a great differ-
ence between the clothing or forms of things, and
the substance or essence of things. It cannot be

THE DOCTRINE OF HE A VEN AND HELL. 20I

said that men in their intrinsic nature are material,
nor can it be said that the laws which govern them
are material, but the facts, laws and experiences per-
taining to the essential man, in a word anything and
everything which goes to constitute the interior
man in distinction from the outward man, is wholly
of a spiritual nature. For instance, man in his phys-
ical or material nature has an outward form and out-
ward organs ; and in the possession and exercise of
such organs, he does, and suffers, and enjoys those
things, which are appropriate to such an organiza-
tion ; but it is hardly necessary to say, that in his
mental or spiritual nature it is very different. His
internal action, in distinction from his outward or
physical action, is the activity of a spiritual nature ;
and he does, and suffers, and enjoys those things,
which are appropriate to spirit.

4. — We cannot delay in order to go into particu-
lars to any great extent. One or two illustrations
will answer. Man for instance has a conscience.
By means of conscience, using the term in the more
general sense as indicating the whole moral nature,
he discriminates between right and wrong. And
when he acts in accordance with the right, he is
happy; and when he does wrong he suffers. Man
also has affectional susceptibilities, including the
great and controlling power in his spiritual nature

202 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

which enables him to love ; and in the exercise of
this benevolent principle, which always operates in
the direction of good to others, he finds an ample
and rich reward in his own nature. His failure to
exercise it, on the contrary, and the indulgence
without adequate cause of hostile feelings, is attend-
ed, according to a wise law of being, with a corre-
spondent unhappiness to himself. So that happiness
resulting from conformity with spiritual laws, con-
stitutes heaven; and unhappiness resulting from a
violation of these laws constitutes hell. The same
general principles which apply to the one apply to
the other.

5. — And this is not all. It can be said also and
in such a way that contradiction cannot easily have
a place, that there is a fixed and necessary discrimi-
nation between them ; a gulf of separation, excavated
by differences of nature which can never be filled up ;
so that in their interior and distinctive nature
heaven can never become hell, and hell can never
become heaven. Philosophers tell us that there is
an immutable distinction between right and wrong ;
right in its essential nature can never become wrong,
and wrong can never become right. But in study-
ing the relations of ultimate ideas and facts, we shall
find that right and wrong are in a very important
sense the foundations of heaven and hell ; that they

THE DOCTRINE OF IIEA VEN AND HELL. 203

are the essential basis upon which heaven and hell
arc erected; and that the affirmation of an immuta-
ble distinction and separation between them, is vir-
tually an affirmation of a like distinction and separ-
ation of that which grows out of them.

And if it should be affirmed at this point, that
these statements have reference rather to identity
than to duration, and that the existence and the
distinctive difference of both may be conceded, with-
out involving the fact of their unchangeable perma-
nency', then it remains to be added further, that, inas-
much as it is impossible to conceive of a moral uni-
verse where right and wrong are not, so it is
impossible to conceive of such an universe where
heaven and hell are not. So that on philosophical
principles, heaven and hell are not more immutable
and distinctive in their nature, than they arc un-
changeable and eternal in their duration. And ac-
cordingly it is not enough to affirm the naked fact
of the existence of heaven and hell ; but the truth
in its absolute form requires us to affirm also, that
there is an eternal heaven and an eternal hell.

6.— The Absolute Religion affirms also, although
it may be conceded that it is not a matter which is
equal in importance, the locality of heaven and hell.
Heaven and hell in their essential nature exist in
beings ; and in beings of whom it can be said that

204 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

they have perceptions, emotions and conscience ;
in beings, who are not simply existences but person-
alities. But it is a primary conception or thought
of the human mind, that such beings and indeed any
beings, of whom it can be said that they are finite
and not infinite, have and must have limitations,
boundaries, outlines, form, which in fact constitute
one of the essential differences between the finite
and the Infinite, and which necessarily carry with
them the idea of locality or place. Affirm of any
being or thing, that it has outline and form, and you
necessarily imply and affirm of it, that it must be
and is in one place rather than another ; in other
words, that it has place; and that place or locality
can no more be separated from it than outline or
form can be separated from it.

Furthermore it is well known that philosophical
thinkers often speak of the fitness of tilings. And in
such a sense that they not only accept of it as a
speculative truth, but fully believe in it and reason
from it as an available and important basis of argu-
ment, in ascertaining and adjusting the position of
one thing considered in relation to another. And
the Absolute Religion, in harmony with this view,
utters as one of its truths, that it is not agreeable to
the fitness of things, in other words that it is not an
appropriate, well adjusted, and fitting thing, that

THE DOCTRINE OF ILEA VEN AND HELL. 205

heaven and hell should be thought to be without
law, and should move their locality at random, and
should be here and there and anywhere and every-
where, without regard to the relative situation, and
the rights and claims, and progress, and histories of
other beings and other localities ; and thus disturb,
if it were a possible thing, the unchangeable harmo-
nies of the universe. And therefore it can be said
for this and for other reasons, especially in view of
the great law of attraction, which compels the asso-
ciation and permanent neighborhood of those who
have likeness of character, that heaven and hell
have not only a locality but a fixed and ascertaina-
ble locality, so that no one in the future life will
have any difficulty in knowing his own place.

7. — And still further, the Absolute Religion af-
firms, in accordance with the expressions that are
found in the revealed or written religions, that
heaven and hell have their walls and gates, theii
trees of life, their golden harps, and their flaming
fires ; with the liberty however, of substituting in a
proper manner the inward meaning for the outward
letter, and the great substance for the metaphorical
shadow. The walls and gates, divested of their
metaphorical import, are the ideas, truths, or laws,
of life, which attach to finite existences in every sit-
uation, and which indicate the boundaries or limits

206 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

which they cannot pass. Not walls or gates in the
material sense, not something visible and tangible
which has been fashioned and set up by human
hands or any other finite agency; but they are not
the less real on that account ; and may be said to
possess even greater strength and permanency.
They cannot be broken through as material walls
can, or undermined, or over-leaped, or worn out ; but
they stand forever. And in like manner the tree of
life, and the waters of life, and the golden harps,
and the flaming fires, if they do not express like
walls and gates, the limitations of position and ac-
tion, will be found on a proper interpretation, to
imply and to express certain forms of inward expe-
rience both good and evil. There are joys and
griefs of the spirit as well as physical joys and griefs ;
joys and griefs which do not depend upon positive
and arbitrary enactments, but which necessarily re-
sult from the practical relation of our lives to the
laws of right and wrong, and without which heaven
and hell could have no existence.

8. — And lastly the Absolute Religion, speaking
alike in all lands and all languages and all intellects,
not only announces the existence of heaven and
hell, and with the seal of eternity upon them, but
proclaims with equal distinctness to the doer of
good and evil, that there is no possible escape from

THE DOCTRINE OF IIEA VEN AND HELL. 207

them. They are not only facts but inheritances ;
not only existences but are capable of being peopled
and dwelt in. Such is the nature and fixed relation
of things, that it can be said in terms which admit
of no uncertainty, that the sinner is necessarily a
sufferer ; and that the doer of good is necessarily
happy, and that neither the one nor the other,
neither the good man nor the sinner, can fly from
the heaven or hell that is appropriate to him any
more than he can fly from himself. The man who is
excluded from the kingdom of love, and has his home
and kingdom in himself, who in making self his cen
tre is cast out of the All and is shut up in the one,
who is sunk from the liberty of God into the sla-
very of the creature, is in the truth and essence of
Hell, whatever may be said of his locality. Hell
therefore is a state of mind. And accordingly the
Absolute Religion has no controversy with the doc-
trine of Hell, whether found in the Christian Scrip-
tures or anywhere else, because Hell when properly
explained, is perceived to be, not a material Tophet
or Gehenna, but a fact of the universal consciousness ;
and what is more, it is an accepted problem' of the
primary or universal philosophy. Nor has it any
controversy with the doctrine of the locality of
Hell; because locality, when ideas arc subjected to
a suitable analysis, is a necessary incident to all

2q3 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

finite beings ; and the locality which constitutes the
place of Hell's subjects, necessarily constitutes the
locality of Hell itself.

The Absolute Religion accepts Hell just as it
accepts Heaven, and it accepts both of them, not
only because they are matters of observation and
consciousness, but because the unchangeable affirma-
tion of philosophy proclaim the necessity of their
being. And it accepts the locality of Heaven (a lo-
cality but not necessarily a fixed locality,) for the
same reason that it accepts the locality of Hell.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Of the Sin against the Holy Ghost, or the Sin which
cannot be forgiven.

I. — The doctrine of forgiveness of sin cannot be
understood in all its aspects, without some specific
reference to the doctrine of sin itself. The Scrip-
tures recognize two kinds of sin. And accordingly
as forgiveness has relation to sin, it modifies itself in
accordance with the nature of the sin to be for-
given ; — taking effect in some cases and not in others.
The first of the two forms of sin to which reference
has been made, is sometimes called in the Scriptures
the " sin of ignorance." Much account is made of
this sin in the code of Moses. See Levit. 4: 2-13,
Numb. 15: 24-30. This form of sin, which is that
of which the Apostle Paul was especially guilty, 1st
Tim. 1:13, and to which he refers in his address to
the Athenians on Mars Hill, Acts 17: 30, results in
part from the imperfection of man's finite condition.
His experience is limited. His knowledge is neces-

2io ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

sarily small in the beginning. He advances amid
many obstacles and drawbacks. And without know-
ing precisely what he does, and without the specific
intention of doing evil, he oftentimes does those
things which are injurious either to himself or oth-
ers. This is that " time of ignorance which God
winks at." God does not exact from the weak-
nesses and imperfections of man's childhood, that
which he may properly exact from his advanced
maturity.

2. — The second form of sin is a sin of knowledge,
and therefore of deliberate intention. It is the sin
of those, who either know or who might know if
they would employ their faculties to that purpose,
what sin is. It is, therefore, the sin of the heart ;
and has in it that element of pride and obstinacy
which is the essence of blasphemy. The person who
commits it is described in the book of Numbers, as the
man who " doeth aught presumptuously ; " and there-
fore in distinction from the sin of ignorance, it might
properly be denominated the sin of presumption.
It is the sin of Goliah of Gath, who defied the armies
of the living God, and of all that unbelieving, proud
and violent class of men, whom the Philistines rep-
resent ; although it undoubtedly and very often ex-
ists in different degrees of openness and boldness.
It is the sin of Ananias and Sapphira, who deliber-

SIN WHICH CANNOT BE FORGIVEN. 211

ately withheld from God what they knew belonged
to Him. It is the sin of Judas who, standing for
years in the clearness of the light of the Son of God,
did yet betray Him. It is the sin in some degree
at least, of all men, and of every man at all times and
in every age of the world, who docs not cheerfully
and fully act up to the light within him.

3. — The distinction between these kinds or forms
of sin is often made, with greater or less degree of
distinctness, in writers on the history of Philosophic
Opinions, on Natural Law, and on Moral Philoso-
phy ; — not excluding some philosophic writers among
the early Greeks and Romans. In Latin writers the
sin of ignorance or any form of sin, which indicated
weakness and imperfection, rather than deliberate
evil intention, was denominated culpa or was ex-
pressed by some other equivalent term, while the
deliberate or " presumptuous" sin was denominated
crimen.

4. — Now keping in mind this fundamental dis-
tinction in the forms of transgression, and connect-
ing it with forgiveness, which implies in its higher
and celestial sense not only overlooking a wrong,
and passing it by, but also loving harmonization, we
arc prepared to add that the sin of ignorance can
be forgiven. It is a sin of the head rather than of
heart ; and not only can be forgiven, but ought

2I2 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

to be and must be forgiven by all who are the true
children of God. But the sin which is described in
the Bible as the " sin of presumption," cannot be for-
given in that higher and true sense which has been
mentioned, because it is both a sin of knowledge and
a sin of the heart. It is deliberate, self-confident
and defiant ; and therefore cannot be forgiven inas-
much as it rejects forgiveness. The sin of those
who crucified Christ, great as it was, could be for-
given. Some of them undoubtedly thought, as
Paul in his persecutions of the church, that they
were doing God's service. Christ prayed " Father,
forgive them for they know not zvhat they do." But
he says nothing about forgiveness of the sin of
Judas, who cannot be supposed to have sinned in
ignorance, but to have known well that he was sac-
rificing a good and holy man from a purely selfish
consideration.

5. — With these explanations we are enabled per-
haps better to understand the statement in Mat-
thew 12:31. " Wherefore I say unto you, all manner
of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men ;
but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not
be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a
word against the Son of man it shall be forgiven
Him. But whosoever speaketh against the Holy
Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him neither in this

SIN WHICH CANNOT BE FORGIVEN. 213

world, neither in the world to come." In this pas-
sage, which harmonizes with what has already been
said of the sin of ignorance, and the sin of presump-
tion, we have two forms of sin brought together and
placed side by side, namely the sin against the Son
of man and the sin against the Holy Ghost ; and
they are so far essentially distinct from each other,
that one can be forgiven, the other cannot. To
speak against the Son of Man, as we understand it,
is to speak against or controvert on the ground of
imperfect knowledge, the doctrine of a Personal
Christ : — for instance, the predictions which have re
lation to Him, the facts of his incarnation, the varied
incidents of his history and other things. It is obvi-
ous, that this is a sin which is consistent with a de-
gree of sincerity; and which in being sincere, is
likely to work itself out into the truth. It is a sin
therefore which can be forgiven. But the sin against
the Holy Ghost, that deliberate form of it which is
expressed in the Greek word translated blasphemy,
which is sin against the Internal or Essential Christ
in distinction from the outward or personal Christ,
cannot be forgiven.

6. — There appears to be, and there undoubtedly
is, a great philosophical principle involved in the
statement which Christ makes ; as in point of fact it

2I4 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

will generally be found that such biblical facts and
statements everywhere involve principles.

The Bible viewed beneath the surface of its facts,
and in the light of an interior spiritual interpreta-
tion, is a book of principles. And the principle here
is this. Errors of judgment, mistakes arising from
unintentional ignorance, even unholy affections aris-
ing from mere misapprehension and every thing of
that kind may be forgiven. But the sin against the
Holy Ghost in its essence is selfishness, and is delib-
erate and persistent. The Holy Ghost, whatever
may be said of his manifestations or his Personality,
is God in his nature. And union therefore on the
part of God, with those who sin against the Holy
Ghost, is an impossibility, because it would be the
union of things which at the same time are divided
against each other — of love and selfishness, of God
and satan. And forgiveness therefore, which always
involves the fact of union, when it exists in its high-
est and truest sense, is necessarily excluded under
such circumstances.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Prayer in its Relation to the Absolute Religion.

i- — Prayer, in its analysis and its foundation,
necessarily involves the fact of the existence and
the presence of two personalities — of God who is
prayed to and of man who prays. Prayer in utter-
ance is not merely and exclusively petitionary ; but
includes both supplication and adoration. The ba-
sis of these two forms, or that which entitles them
to an uttered existence, is found in the character of
the being who is prayed to. God can always give
what we ask for ; and his character, perfect in all its
attributes, is worthy of the highest adoration. So
far as this, we have a basis of fact and thought
which is unchangeable, and which to this extent
evidently brings the doctrine of Prayer within the
limits of the Absolute Religion.

2. — As we advance further, however, we are
obliged to admit, that the common doctrine on the
subject of prayer may be regarded as somewhat at

2l6 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

fault. The doctrine to which we refer is, that God
is necessarily unimpressible, or as the theologians
commonly express it, that he is impassive ; in other
words, that though he hears he cannot be moved,
and that in the possession of all knowledge, he is
nevertheless without emotions and affections, be-
cause his plans being founded in infinite wisdom are
fixed and inflexible, and his emotions and affections,
which have their antecedence and basis in the facts
of existence, are necessarily as fixed and " impas-
sive " as his immovable plans. We do not deny
that this is a view, which, properly understood and
under proper limitations, embraces an important
truth. But when not accepted with these condi-
tions, it cannot be regarded as the whole truth, and
perhaps it would be correct to say, that it is a seri-
ous and injurious perversion of the truth. It should
be kept in mind that man is not a mere idealism or
fiction in the world of existences ; but in a true and
substantial sense of the term a reality. Next to
God, because he is in a true and especial sense the
child of God, he is the great fact of the universe ;
vast in powers, complicated and yet wisely adjusted
in the methods of mental action, and eternal in his
duration.

3. — And further it is a necessity, that God's ex-
istence being without limitations, should correspond

ON PR A YER. 2 1 7

to, embrace, and harmonize with all other existen-
ces. Man cannot pray without God's hearing his
prayer ; and he cannot offer a prayer, so far as the
clement of desire is a part of it, without God's an-
swering ; although the way or method of answering
is not always perceived. Such a prayer being a fact
in his existence, it is necessarily a fact known: and
being a fact and being known as a fact, it cannot by
any possibility be disregarded. God is moved by it.
4. — But can it not be said, that God himself by
his own interior operation made the prayer. Such
is sometimes the doctrine. And yet, even if
something can be said in favor of that view,
can it not be said with far greater truth, that God
made man, and that in the exercise of the powers
and responsibilities God had given him, man made
the prayer ? God and man, though standing in the
closest relationship, are not identical. It is a mis-
taken and erroneous philosophy which asserts it.
Man from the moment of his creation became a
part of the universe ; as we have already said, not a
fiction or pretence or mere semblance of being, but
a reality ; not a thing made to be ignored ; not a
thing made to be dashed to pieces ; not a mere
plaything to be laughed at, contemned, trifled with
and thrown aside at will. God does not work in
that way. God is a serious being and very far from

2 1 8 ABSOL UTE RELIGION.

being a thoughtless trifler ; and when he does a
thing he does it seriously and in wisdom, and he
does it for permanency ; and all his dealings with
man are stamped and sealed with justice. Remem-
ber therefore that man is really and truly man ; and
when he prays at all, his prayer is and must be a
prayer and nothing else ; and God hears because
the ear of his knowledge is infinite and cannot be
shut ; and God answers the prayer by corresponding
to it in wisdom and goodness, because the love of
his heart is infinite, and it is not possible for him to
ignore or to trample on the desires of the children
whom he has made. It is thus and cannot be oth-
erwise.

But this is not argument, perhaps some will say.
And this in a certain sense may be true. But if it
is not argument in the ordinary sense, it is some-
thing higher than argument ; it is both the intui-
tion of the intellect and the affirmation of the heart.
And now it is to be remembered that we are speak-
ing of prayer, and not of the mere appearance or
pretence of prayer.

We have already said that prayer necessarily in-
volves two things, first the Being who is prayed to ;
second the being who prays. And we may add also,
prayer involves a desire of the object which calls
forth the prayer, and faith in God as the giver of that

ON PRAYER. 219

.'or which we ask. And it is hardly necessary to add
that there must be sincerity in all And now, look-
ing at the matter in the light of the Absolute Reli-
gion, in the light of the highest reason, which is the
intuitional reason, how is it possible in the nature of
things that God can be insensible to, and take no
cognizance of a sincere desire ? Let those who think
so, go back to first principles, and find out if possible
what God is.

But remember also that prayer has faith in it.
But faith in God as the answerer of prayer in his
own good time and way and wisdom, which is con-
fessedly implied and involved in faith, is wholly in-
compatible with the idea that God is an impassive
being, and is not moved by our supplications.

5. — But how can it be possible, says one, that God
who is Infinite should be moved by the finite? I
ask in return, how is it possible that God who is In-
finite should not be moved by the finite ? The In-
finity of God, who is not only an infinity of knowl-
edge but an infinity of feeling, implies and requires
that all the facts of the finite should be known, and
also that all the feelings which arc appropriate to
this knowledge should be actually experienced. It
cannot be otherwise. The failure to experience all
the feelings which are appropriate to all existing facts,
would imply and would establish an imperfection

220 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

in his character. To accept God in the infini-
tude of knowledge, and to curtail Him in the infini-
tude of feeling, is to mutilate Him in one of his most
essential attributes and to make him unworthy of
reverence. If He knows a thing and feeling is truly
appropriate to that thing, then it follows that feeling
is a necessity. And hence it is not merely as a dog-
matic declaration, but as a requisition of the Abso-
lute of things, that not a sparrow falleth to the
ground without his notice, and that he will not allow
the husbandman to " muzzle the ox that treadeth out
the corn." And does He not care for man, as well as
for oxen and the birds of the air? Does He num-
ber the hairs of our heads, and have no respect for
the petitions of the heart ? Does he not pity man's
sorrows and hear his cries and honor his faith ?

When men know God only by the intellect, they^
may be at a loss on these questions; but when they
know him by the comprehension of the heart, they
know what the answer is, and there can be no other.

The plain language of Scripture therefore, and
the doctrine commonly received, that God is a hearer
and answerer of prayer, that He takes an interest in
all our wants and does not fail to respond to them,
is a doctrine also of the Absolute Religion. And
every friend and advocate of the Absolute Religion
may know assuredly, first by reason and secondly

ON PRAYER. 221

by experience if he will make the experiment,
that when he prays to God, God will hear him. The
true parent loves to have his children ask for what
they want. And so of God, He could not listen to
the petition, if he did not love to answer it. The
two things would be incompatible. The outward
expression of that which is within, is a necessity. It
is true that this expression in its modes is very va-
rious. There is verbal expression; there- is the ex-
pression of the countenance, there is the expression
of action. The fullest expression of joy or of sorrow
is generally found to require the combination of all
these. In point of fact, man wants and he receives ;
he has needs and he has supplies. The existence of
wants necessitates prayer ; it may exist merely in the
form of desire, or it may go further and embody it-
self in expression : but in either case, it is prayer.

It may perhaps be said, that God who is omnis-
cient knows our wants ; and there is no necessity of
expression. But expression takes place of itself, and
is a necessary attendant of want ; and it is doubtful,
whether the want could possibly be supplied with-
out an expression in some of its forms.

CHAPTER XXV.

Relation of Faith to Salvation.

I. — It is one of the doctrines of the Christian reli-
gion, as those doctrines are accepted and expounded
by the great mass of its professors, that salvation is
by means of faith. "He that believcth shall be
saved." " He that believeth on the Son hath ever-
lasting life." These and numerous other sayings and
passages express or imply this fixed relation between
salvation considered as a result, and faith as a
means leading to that result. The doctrine of sal-
vation by faith is not only an affirmation of the
Scriptures ; but when carefully looked into, will be
found to harmonize with the philosophy of the
mind, and is entitled to be received as an affirma-
tion of enlightened reason. And if so, the doctrine
which is announced in the Scriptures, and the doc-
trine of the Absolute Religion on the subject, are
not at variance; but the former is accepted and
illustrated by the latter.

2. — In saying, however, that salvation is by

RE LA TION OF FAITH TO SAL VA TION. 223

means of faith, and that the doctrine of salvation
considered as thus originated, is in harmony with
the requisitions of reason and sound philosophy, it
is necessary to inquire, in the first place, what we
are to understand by salvation. We read in the
wonderful prayer, recorded in the latter part of
John's Gospel ; " Neither pray I for these alone ;
but for them also which shall believe on me through
their word ; that they all may be one, as Thou, Fa-
ther, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be
one in us." Union with God, — a state or condition
of mind extending to the most interior depths of
our nature, in which the human affections and the
human will are fully harmonized, and made one with
the heart and will of the Infinite, — was Christ's
prayer for his people. A prayer uttered in circum-
stances which show that he understood the union
which he prayed for, as not only indicating the
highest and noblest of all possible inward or psychi-
cal processes, but as including the highest possible
good. And this, setting aside what may be said,
and to some extent rightly and profitably said, of a
local heaven, which may be regarded as only an in-
cident of salvation and not identical with its essen-
tial nature, is our definition of it, namely, UNION
with God ; a state of the soul ; a heart, wherever
it may be found, and whether in earth or in heaven,

224 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

throbbing in all its pulsations, in harmony with the
divine heart, in unity of thought, in unity of feeling
and purpose, and in unity of life. Such is salva-
tion ; and he who is the subject of this experience
is saved.

3. — Salvation as thus defined is and must be by
faith. It is well known that the doctrine or philos-
ophy of faith, in itself considered, implies and re
quires an object to which faith attaches itself. In
every case where there is an exercise of faith, there
is and must be something which is believed in. To
believe and yet with nothing believed in, is an ab-
surdity in the philosophy of the operations of the
mind, analogous to a contradiction in mathematics.
And accordingly the first experience in the series
of mental conditions, which constitute the great fact
of unity with God, is belief or faith in the existence
of God. We must believe that God is. It requires
no argument to show, that without such belief as
this, the mental experience, called union with God,
becomes in the mental sense, which is the only true
and essential sense, an impossibility.

4. — Again, we must believe not only in the ex-
istence of God but in his rectitude ; in other words
that he will do what will be right towards us ; that
he will dispense and withhold, that he will guide
and sustain us, or at times leave us without percep-

RELATION OF FAITH TO SALVATION. 225

tible guidance and without perceptible support, and
do anything and everything else, always and under
all circumstances in accordance with what is right.
And the reason is this, the human mind is so consti-
tuted, that it naturally and necessarily forms the idea
of rectitude or right. And not only this, on any
subject on which it is properly enlightened, it may
be said always to approve the right and to love it ;
and on the other hand always to disapprove the
wrong, and to have feelings of aversion towards it.
It is impossible, therefore, that man should enter
into a state of harmony or union with God, without
having faith in the divine rectitude. God is mind,
and man in his essential nature is mind ; and with
man's innate convictions and feelings in relation to
rectitude, and without a full belief in God's rectitude,
the true basis of harmony is wanting, and union with
God under such circumstances cannot possibly exist.
And therefore salvation fails.

5. — And this is not all. In order to reach the
salvation which is involved in a unity with the di-
vine life, it is further necessary to believe that God
accepts us, loves us, protects us, and is and will be a
friend and father to us. This is one of the highest
:ind most important acts of faith. But such are the
laws and the generation of thought, that it is logic-
ally and mentally impossible for us to do this, unless
10*

226 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

we renounce evil in ourselves, or in the Scripture
expression repent of sin. The harmony of ideas re-
quires this. No man ever did or ever can believe in
God as a friend and father to himself personally, and
in the sense of an acceptance of himself into the re-
lation of unity of life, so long as he is inwardly con-
scious of doing things wilfully, which God disap-
proves and forbids. It is intuitionally evident to the
man who is in the habit of meditating mental prob-
lems, that the states of mind,— namely, an inward
consciousness of deliberately sinning against God, and
a belief at the same time that God accepts, approves,
and loves us and unites himself with us, — are not
only antagonistic, but are mutually exclusive and
destructive of each other. In other words, to be-
lieve that God unites himself with us, when we are
inwardly and mentally conscious of hostility to him,
is to believe in contradictions. Belief, therefore,
must not only exist in reference to its appropriate
object, namely, a God who is not only righteous, but
is recognized as righteous by ourselves ; but in taking
a direction which will receive him into the intimacies
of living and personal friendship, it must be a faith
which will antecedently demand and will secure, as
it gradually struggles into existence, all those con-
ditions of repentance and spiritual renovation which
render such a great result possible.

RELATION OF FAITH TO SALVATION. 22 7

6. — Such are some of the relations and applica-
tions of faith in the matter of salvation. They are
worthy of serious attention, and in their application
involve some of the most important acts of the soul.
They are not only Scriptural announcements, and
entitled to acceptance on the ground of the source
from which they come ; but are in harmony with the
laws of the mind, and commend themselves to any
reasonable philosophy.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Divine Influences.

i. — The doctrine of Divine Influences, in other
words that men are susceptible of being inwardly
taught and guided by the Spirit of God, and that
such teaching and guidance is a part of the spiritual
and religious economy of the Universe, is a doctrine
not only historically illustrated and confirmed in the
ancient books of many nations, but is agreeable to
the highest thought and reasonings of men, and
therefore properly takes its place among the doc-
trines of the Absolute Religion. Setting aside for
the present the historical argument, which may be
regarded as highly confirmatory, and looking at the
subject in the light of intuition and reasoning alone,
we may remark, in the first place, that the doctrine
of divine influences flows naturally and necessarily
from the fact, which we suppose now to be recog-
nized and established, of the existence of God. God
exists. And his existence as God makes Him the
source of existence to all other beings. And it is

DIVIDE INFLUENCES.

229

certainly reasonable to say, that his position as the
source of being, entitles Him to the control, and not
only gives the right but imposes the duty of control,
over the beings He has created. He makes them
what they are ; and it would not be possible for Him
because it would not be right and just, to relieve
himself from all responsibility in relation to them.
And responsibility cannot be separated from any
degree of guidance and control, which is necessary
to meet the claims that the existing responsibility
imposes. In a word God creates and therefore He
rules. On this point when it is properly explained,
there can hardly be a difference of opinion.

2. — When we come to the subject of the kind or
manner of the control which he is entitled to exer-
cise, and which it is his duty to exercise, there may
possibly be ground for some differences of thought.
We may say however in general terms, that the
manner of this control must be determined by a con-
sideration of the nature and relations of the beings
respectively, who govern on the one hand, or are
governed on the other. God is a spirit ; and man in
his essential nature is a spirit also; and having by
means of our personal consciousness gained some
knowledge of our own spiritual nature, we arc as-
sisted by that knowledge to some extent, in gaining
a knowledge of the spiritual nature of God. And in

230 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

affirming the doctrine of Divine Influences, the doc-
trine of God operating upon man, and of man, in his
mental nature accepting and responding to the di-
vine influence, we are aided in meeting the problems
involved in the subject, by a knowledge, that it is
mind operating upon mind, and by a just considera-
tion and application of known mental laws.

3. — And accordingly we proceed to say, that the
exercise of divine influence is not the application of
material force, nor anything strictly analogous to
material force, which would obviously be inconsis-
tent with the nature of mind ; but, so far as we can
perceive, such divine influence is, and can be, only
the application of that mental force which is lodged
in motives. God influences by setting motives be-
fore us. If difficulties are to be surmounted, he sets
before us motives which are fitted to increase our
courage ; if threatening dangers are in our way, he
sets before us motives which are adapted to excite
our fears ; and in the vast field of human purpose
and action, he is at no loss for appropriate sugges-
tions and appliances suited to every possible occa-
sion.

It is proper to make the remark at this point,
that God, in operating upon man by means of mo-
tives, never violates his freedom. Man is not merely
an existence but a moral and accountable being;

DIVINE INFLUENCES. 23 1

and freedom, placed beyond the reach of violation, is
one of the attributes which constitutes him a
man.

4. — It is not necessary for us, however, to pursue
the subject largely in this direction. The great
topic before us, that of the absolute and unchangea-
ble religion and what is included in it, renders it
more important to affirm the fact than the manner
of the fact ; to say what is rather than Jiow it is. In
saying, therefore, that there are and must be Divine
Influences, God operating upon man and man the
subject of the divine operation, we say that which
is affirmed by human experience. And human ex-
perience, considered in the different aspects in which
it presents itself, ' includes the testimony both of
feeling and reason. Eternal and unchangeable
truth, when existing within the sphere of humanity
and having relation to humanity, is always verified
by human intuition. Intuitional reason affirms the
influences of God. The existence of such divine in
fluence is not identical with its affirmation ; but the
affirmation is the out-birth and the revelation of the
existence. And it may further be said, that the
affirmation brings the great fact within the range
of one of the forms of human experience ; and ena
bles us to recognize it, to speak of it, and to rejoice
in it.

232 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

5. — And this is not all. The existence of Di-
vine Influence upon the mind is verified also by that
form of experience which we call feeling. How
common it is for men to say, with considerable vari-
ety of expression, that God is near them or that He
impresses them or that he is within them. Men af-
firm the thing, not merely because it is intuitionally
perceived, on the ground that it is because it cannot
be otherwise, but because they feel it to be so.
The emotions or sentiments have a voice as well as
the perceptions ; and although the utterance is dif-
ferent in form, it is the same in meaning. The his-
tory of the churches, the history of individuals, the
testimony which is given by persons in all situations,
from the highest to the lowest, is in harmony with
this statement, that divine influences are experienced
and recognized in the inward feeling.

6. — In a recently published work on Mental
Philosophy, I have referred to the doctrine of divine
influences in the following terms ; with the intro-
duction of which here, I leave the subject, which is
one of great practical importance to the reflections
of the reader.

The susceptibility of inspiration from higher
sources is not merely, as some may perhaps suppose,
a theological dogmatism, but is one of the great and

DIVINE INFLUENCES. 233

precious facts of humanity. God never ignores the
sublime truth of his universal Fatherhood, and has
never released his connection with any of the tribes
of men. He utters his voice everywhere. Homer,
Plato, Euripides, Cicero, Livy and Plutarch, as well
as the long record of those whose inspirational his-
tory has given lustre and power to the unequalled
pages of the Bible, have recognized the fact, that
man in the weaknesses and ignorance incidental to
his finite nature, is susceptible of strength and guid-
ance from the Infinite.

But these results are reached through law. The
conditions of inspirational receptivity, at least those
which are leading and indispensable, arc three.
First, Faith in this great fact, that there is thus an
open door of communication between God and man ;
second, a sincere desire that God, who never violates
our freedom, will by means of his inspirational influ-
ences come into communication with us ; and third,
a freedom from all biases and prejudices of self-will,
— in other words, unselfishness. Under such cir-
cumstances, the human mind in virtue of the un-
changeable laws of its being, is susceptible of being
reached, instructed, and guided. Nothing is more
important to man than such guidance. And the
mental susceptibility (not exclusively, but much

234 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

more than some other of our mental powers,) which
is open to divine influences, and which turns to
catch the inspirational suggestions of God, is the
Intuitional power.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Explanation of existing practical Methods of
Teaching.

I. — If the Christian religion, it will be said by
some, has thus a philosophical basis and is in fact
the absolute and eternal religion, why should it not
in the first instance, and always, be presented in that
light, instead of being presented and pressed upon
men in the way in which it commonly is. In other
words, admitting that the Gospel is a philosophy, in
the sense of having a philosophical and permanent
foundation, it is objected, that it is not proclaimed
and preached as a philosophy. And it is intimated
and urged in relation to the method of teaching it,
that it ought to be otherwise than it is.

2. — The answer to this objection is this. There
is a great difference between philosophy, whether it
be the philosophy of religion or any other form of
philosophy, in itself considered, and in the essential-
ness of its own nature, and the mode or manner of
teaching such philosophy to those who have hith-

236 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

erto not received it. The truth is always the same ;
and philosophy, when we discriminate between the
semblance and the substance, can never be a varia-
tion from the truth ; but the capacity of receiving
the truth in all its length and breadth is not always
the same. There is a great difference in this re-
spect ; and the method of teaching, if it be a true
and available method, will have relation not only to
the thing taught, but to the present condition and
the capacity of receiving on the part of those to
whom instruction is to be communicated. The ge-
ometries of Euclid and Legendre and the physical
philosophy of Newton, at least in its mathematical
principles, are the eternal truth ; they stand the
same from age to age ; but the method of teaching,
including the times and manner of teaching, is not
identical with the thing taught ; and it is well
known, that we do not teach geometries and other
forms of the higher mathematics to children, be-
cause there are other things more fitted to their yet
weak and undeveloped capacity, and which may be
considered as preparatory to the reception of the
higher and more abstruse forms of truth.

3. — And somewhat in accordance with this view,
the preacher who has God for his guide in the in-
structions he gives, will first address men in accor-
dance with the facts in the case, namely, as being in

EXIS TING ME TIIOD S OF TEA CHING. 237

the first form of life, or that form which we have de-
nominated self-hood, and as being the subjects of
all those errors and sins, which must necessarily re-
sult from a continuance of that form of life, to the
rejection of the light and truth of a higher form of
life. In other words, the first object of the true
preacher, taking men as he finds them, in the posses-
sion not only of an outward written law, but of a
law written upon the heart and yet living in the
violation of that law, will be to convince them of sin.
And having secured this, the second object, other-
wise they would be left "in the condition of misery
which always results from a consciousness of sin, will
be to disclose to them the possibility and the
method of forgiveness. And therefore he points
the sinner to Jesus; in other words to God " mani-
fest in the flesh;" to God brought within the limits
of humanity and revealed in his essential nature,
and earnestly desiring the return of sinners to Him-
self.

4. — But this view of God revealed to man in the
infinitude of his love, of God clothed in humanity
and in humanity suffering upon the Cross, will be
of no avail (such are the laws of the mind that it is
not possible that it should be of any avail,) without
faith or belief. And hence it is, that the preacher
of the Gospel who is divinely guided, having first

238 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

pressed the fact of sin, is led now to press with
equal earnestness the matter of faith. If the sinner
fully believes in God as a God of forgiveness and
love, which he is enabled to do only by directing
his thoughts to the great and wonderful facts, which
make up the history of the incarnation and the
Cross, then the misery attendant upon his trans-
gression passes away ; and so far as forgiveness is
concerned, he becomes reconciled to God.

5. — And then, without undertaking to narrate
minutely all the steps in the process, the question
arises in the mind of the reconciled offender, how is
it possible for me to be kept in the right path in
the future. And accordingly the preacher, pursu-
ing the true logical method by harmonizing his
instructions with the condition and wants and re-
ceptivity of the sinner, reminds him again of the
universality of the law, — a law not only extending
to all existences, but necessary and eternal and uni-
versal in its obligations, — and teaches him, that its
claims can be met only in one way, namely, by
placing his freedom and power of will, — not annul-
ling them but freely placing them, in the keeping
and guidance of the divine will ; and thus virtually
and practically, and yet with no loss of his own per-
sonality and freedom, making himself one with God.

6. — It is only when the mind is brought to this

EXISTING METHODS OF TEACHING. 239

position that it learns, (and it learns it then from its
own inward experience,) that the Christian religion,
as full of wisdom as it is of mercy and love, is the
true and the only Absolute Religion.

And it may be added here, that it is important
for various reasons to remember, that the path of
religious knowledge, when it aims at the foundation
of things, is in this direction, and can be found no-
where else. Obey and learn. Be ye followers of
Christ, that ye may know the truths of Christ.
Open thine eye to the light, that thou may-
est see the things that the light reveals. When
the soul has experimentally gone through with the
spiritual processes, which the unchangeable truth re-
quires, it will be found that this experimental knowl-
edge will reveal and establish, beyond the power of
any argument antecedent to such experience, not
only the truth itself, but the immovable rock of its
eternal foundation.

7. — Go on, then, preachers of the Gospel and all
who labor for the extension of the truth, surrounded
as you are by those who arc in ways of darkness and
error, and proclaim to them their sin in order that
they may be convinced of sin. Proclaim to them
repentance, which includes not only a knowledge of
sin, but sorrow for sin, and a change from sin. And
as all sin, whatever its specific form, is, in its rela-

240 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

tions and ultimate results, a sin against God ; pro- »
claim God, not in the first instance in the universality
and incomprehensibleness of his existence, but God
" manifested in Christ " and thus brought into the
intimacy of human relations, as ready and will-
ing to forgive. Proclaim not only the fact and free-
ness of this great forgiveness, but also and with all
the holy earnestness which is appropriate to your
divine ministry, the fact of simple faith, as the only
possible means by which such forgiveness can be
practically recognized and made available as a prin-
ciple of renovation to the soul. Proclaim and show
the necessity of the constant presence and in-dwell-
ing of the Spirit of God. Proclaim the absolute sur-
render of the human will to the divine will, as neces-
sary to continuous and universal obedience and to
the removal of all obstacles to the operation of God's
spirit. Proclaim union with God, even as Christ and
God are one, as the great practical and unchange-
able result of divine teachings when fully received
and realized.

And thus shall it be seen and known, when the
soul has ascended as it were after the manner of
Jacob's ladder by successive steps, to the mount of
angelic vision, that the great plan of salvation which
annihilates sin by a love that has its expression in
letters of blood, and which attracts and consolidates

EXISTING METHODS OF TEACHING. 24 1

human freedom with the harmonies of the univer-
sal will, is not a mere dogmatism, but ascending far
beyond and above the contingencies of time and
place, is absolute, universal and eternal.
11

.CHAPTER XXVIII.

Contrasted Views of the Selfish and Essential Life.

The world is man, or rather is humanity. And
man is not a man except in' virtue of possessing in
himself what may be called a motive power. Such a
power, — such an innate motivity, — is a necessity,
(that is to say, a necessary or indispensable condi-
tion) of the existence of all intelligent and active
beings. This is undoubtedly one of the affirmations
of man's intuitive intellect,— of the mind in its sug-
gestive or spontaneous action ; an affirmation which
utters itself in all men's hearts, and which therefore
carries with it an universal consent. And so far
philosophy harmonizes with religion. Man lives
because he has power to live ; and the nature of his
life will be according to the nature of that power.

If we look at man's history from this point of
view, we shall get a glimpse of the outlines of suc-
cessive dispensations. In what is often called his
natural state, man finds that internal and impulsive
energy which constitutes the soul's life,-*or at least

VIEWS OF SELFISH AND ESSENTIAL LIFE. 243

this is generally and almost universally the case, —
in the attractions of sensual pleasure, in the obstina-
cies of pride, in the aspirations of ambition, in the
hostilities of revenge, and in the ever-grasping de-
sire of possession and accumulation. He is born
into the finite ; — and his first idea is, (and it could
not well be otherwise,) to live in the finite; — that is
to say, to live for himself. He is his own world.
In that world he lives; and from it he lives ; and
his object is not to diminish it by imparting to oth-
ers, but on the contrary, though at the expense of
jealousy and strife, to increase and strengthen it by
adding whatever he can. And as society cannot be
separated from the units which compose it, there-
fore the man individual is the precise representa-
tive, the type or form, of the man social. And
therefore the leading characteristic of the first dis-
pensation is SELFISM. And sclfism is necessarily
antagonism. He who lives to himself, does not
live to others ; and not living to others as he lives
to himself, and for himself, he is necessarily separat-
ed from them in a greater or less degree, and be-
comes antagonistical. Everywhere there is distrust,
jealousy, pride, anger, lust, revenge, cruelty, and
every evil thing which imagination can conceive.
This is man's first development, the first historical
fact which the early records of every nation and peo-

244 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

pie distinctly declare. This is what is read in the
histories of the savage tribes of North America.*

This is what is read, if we look deeply into the
motives of the actors, in the Homeric poems, and in
the historical fragments and the traditions, as we
find them in Niebuhr, which give us a view of the
early states of Italy. This is the sad and humiliat-
ing story, which I have myself seen and read, as it
has stood through long generations, sculptured in
the walls of the enduring temples of Thebes. Such
is the historical truth that has been dug up also
from the buried cities of the Tigris and the Euphra-
tes.

The nations which existed antecedent to the
time of Moses, and in the regions through which he
led the Hebrews, are illustrations of this statement;
— the Amalekites, the Moabites, the Ammonites,
and also the cities, tribes, and states which inhabit-
ed Palestine, and the Philistine country, and the an-
cient Phoenicia.

This first dispensation, which we will here call
the dispensation of selfism, was modified, in the
course of time and in some respects elevated, by a
high civilization. It was the result of selfishness,

* Numberless volumes might be referred to. Perhaps there is
none more terribly instructive than the recently published Life of
Beckwith.

VIEWS OF SELFISH AND ESSENTIAL LIFE. 245

directing its agriculture and its commerce to the
one great object of accumulation, that it should ac-
quire wealth. And wealth in its turn brought leis-
ure, luxury, a false refinement, and the polite arts.
But nothing was altered in its essential nature.
Selfishness was at the root. Selfishness was at the
heart. Selfishness was everywhere. Refinement
and art threw around it some semblance of beauty ;
but it was only the beauty of the sculptured monu-
ment, which conceals the death and corruption be-
neath it. Thus Tyre and Sidon, and Nineveh and
Babylon, and Memphis and Thebes, and Athens
and Rome, with all their wealth and arts, were es-
sentially under the same condemnation with the
corrupt and degraded cities and nations which had
perished before them.

There are and can be only two essential or real
dispensations, having a definite and fixed character ;
— that which has its centre and its power of life in
the individual or the limited, and that which has its
centre in God or the universal. The dispensation
of external law, which is incidental to the first, is
not an essential, but an accessory dispensation; —
which, however, has its place, its history, and its
value. Although in the progressive development of
existences, it was necessary that the attribute of free-
dom should be given to man, — a real and not merely

246

ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

an apparent freedom, — yet the Divine Goodness
could not allow, and the rights of freedom could not
justly claim, that it should be permitted to men to
do injury to others. In other words, although their
freedom involved the fact or rather the possibility of
their doing injustice, yet it would be right in God,
and would be incumbent upon Him, to restrict all
such unjust tendencies by a dispensation of law and
of the penalties of law. Now the freedom of self-
ishness is the freedom of destruction.

And the world, with freedom for its opportunity
and selfishness for its motive power, became a great
slaughter-house, — an Aceldama, — so much so that a
dispensation of external law, marking in many cases
the precise boundaries between right and wrong, be-
came a great necessity. The same love which
granted freedom, imposed law ; in order that free-
dom might not degenerate into license and ruin.
And hence came that marked fact in the world's
history, — the legal or Sinai dispensation ; — a dispen-
sation which is not antagonistical to freedom, but
only to freedom degenerating into license. The
central expression of law, in its restriction of man's
destructive selfishness, w7as at Mount Sinai. Exter-
nal law is always terrible, because it is always antag-
onistical. It stands with a drawn sword ; — it holds in
its hand a flame of fire. And therefore" the place

VIEWS OF SELFISH AND ESSENTIAL LIFE. 247

and the circumstances of its announcement were
well adapted to what was announced ; — to a people
who were prepared for it by experience and instruc-
tion, and who were selected as the medium through
which it was to be communicated to others ; — in a
" waste howling wilderness," their tents spread upon
the sand, with rocks and mountains rising all around
them ; amid blackness, and storms, and thunder.
Simultaneously and sympathetically, throughout the
world, as we may well suppose, (for God's heart is
one heart, and God's people are one people, and
what he does for one he does for all,) the law en-
graven distinctly on the Sinai tables, was engraven
also, (with various degrees perhaps of distinctness,
corresponding to their privileges and lights) upon the
tables of the human soul. The universe is a whole
— the head inseparable from the foot, — and nothing
which is great and essential can take place in one
heart, without reaching and affecting sympathetically
all the others. The thunder of Sinai echoed through
the world ; because it was the voice of that God
who is the life of humanity. Everywhere by means
of an increased light opened in the conscience, and
by means of moral teachers raised up in different
lands, were the sentiments of justice developed in
opposition to selfishness ; and the prevalence of vio-
lence and cruelty was in a degree checked. And

248 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

hence it is said by the apostle Paul, that the heathen
to whom the Sinai law was not in the first instance
expressly communicated, but who nevertheless re-
ceived something of its substance, by means of those
interior and magnetic currents which everywhere
connect man with humanity, were " a law to them-
selves, which show the work (or working) of the law
written upon their hearts."

But the same Apostle, — a man who had both
great natural and great inspired light, says in another
place, that the law " makes nothing perfect." And
the reason is, because the law is not a life but a re-
striction ; not a power but a chain. It makes noth-
ing perfect, though it may be true that it shuts up
and limits the downward progress of imperfection.
The law, however, may be of great value, because
if it does not give life, it may yet prevent ruin.
And if the legal dispensation is incidental to the
first or selfish dispensation, it is also transitional to
the last dispensation or the dispensation of univer-
sal love. And hence, it is that the same Apostle
says, that the law, which is the same as the legal
dispensation, is the schoolmaster, which brings us
to Christ. And there is great truth in this, even
when examined by the light of mere human reason.
The pervertedly natural or selfish man sees things
from the light of his own selfish centre. His desire

VIEWS OF SELFISH AND ESSENTIAL LIFE. 249

to include everything in himself is so strong, that it
seems to him to be right. He is, as the Scriptures
represent him, blind. And God in his goodness has
placed him under law, that he might not destroy
himself, and that he might not destroy others. But
this is not all. The same law which preserves him
in his blindness from these injurious results, is also a
teacher. It puts him in a new and effective school.
It opens the eyes of his understanding. It is by
means of the external law, operating through the
inward law of the conscience, that he sees where he
is, and what he has done, and where he is going.
Under the law he is still a selfish man ; but he is a
restrained or regulated selfish man. The legal dis-
pensation is transitional, it gives light ; it is mixed
in its results ; it is a necessity ; but still it is true, as the
Apostle says, that it completes nothing ; it u makes
nothing perfect." The light or knowledge which it
gives is the revelation of the utter deformity and in-
sufficiency of the first or selfish dispensation. It also
gives light in the other direction, by indicating
though imperfectly, the character of that other dis-
pensation which is to take its place.

Let us look again at the expression of Paul, that
the law or legal dispensation is a schoolmaster or
teacher, which is to bring us to Christ. And here
the first question is, who is Christ, or what is

250 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

Christ? To the ancient patriarchs and prophets
Christ was the man who was to come. To the dis-
ciples and apostles at a later period, Christ was the
man who did come. To those who close their eye
to the form in order to be more receptive of the
substance, Christ is not alone the Christ-man but
the Christ-spirit. And the Christ-spirit embodied
in one word is love. It seeks not the good of one
merely, but of all.

To seek the outward Christ is well, but to stop
there is not well. The kingdom of God is within
you. I speak from my own experience. I wanted
Christ in the form. I wished to take him by the
hand, and like the unbelieving Thomas of earlier
days, to see the prints of the nails and to thrust my
hand into his side. But he would not thus be seen
by me. But I hear a voice, and it says, " here I
am;" and it says again, "I am He." It is thine
inward eye that shall see me ; thine inward ear that
shall hear me.

And I said, Lord, how can this be. And he an-
swered it was thus I told my disciples, "I am with
you always even to the end of the world." No
longer look for me in the outward form, and thou
shalt find me in the inward spirit. The form is lim-
ited, and belongs to one. The spirit is universal,
and belongs to all. I am not with one of my disci-

VIE WS OF SELFISH AND ESSENTIAL FIFE.

251

pies only, but with all ; — and in all places and in all
time, I yet live and am still a channel of the truth
to all who are ready to receive it. Ye are the re-
cipients ; I am the giver of that which ye receive.
Ye are the form ; I am the substance. The forms
arc many ; but the substance is one. If I were
present in a personal form, as I was once, and con-
tinued to be present in such a form, I should be
limited, and should be present to one or at most to
a few. In my earthly form I was intimate with my
twelve disciples, and with Lazarus and with Mary
and Martha, and a few women from Galilee. But
now I belong to humanity. Oh my Father, all
mine are thine ; and thine are mine. Oh men, ye
are the form ; I am the substance. If ye need me
and seek me in the form ; then seek me and find me
in yourself.

It is thus we reach the great distinction between
the first or legal dispensation and the second dispen-
sation, the incarnation of Christ, or, in other words
of that love which is the fulfilling of the Law. The
time is hastening, when the true Christ-spirit will
•become incarnated in multitudes who will walk the
earth ; each a John, a Mary, each bearing his own
name, and filling his own place, but each a member
of that holy family of which Jesus Christ the Son of
Mary and the Son of God is the Elder Brother.

252

ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

When the impersonal Christ is born into the world
in the fulness of his nature, the rights and sacred-
ness of woman who is the virgin mother will be un-
derstood and acknowledged. The incipient sign
having relation to woman's position has already-
been given. Without woman, without the aid of
the sympathies which are connatural to her affec-
tionate nature, He could not and cannot be born
into the world. Born of woman once he is born of
woman forever. The truth of Christ dying for us
without the other great truth of Christ living in us.
leaves man out of the sphere of the Divine Unity,
and in a state of perpetual orphanage.

In giving utterance to the truths and principles
which are now inspired within us, and which indi-
cate our present position and purposes, we lay no
bonds upon the future ; — we do not attempt with
audacious hands to steady the divine Ark by plac-
ing chains upon the endless unfoldings of unlimited
Intelligence and Love; — but on the contrary think
it important to proclaim distinctly, and as a thing
which involves man's highest happiness, that we be-
lieve in light added to light, in truth added to truth,
appropriate to each added moment of time, to each
added variation of circumstances, and to each as-
cending step in the soul's unlimited progressional
being.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Mediatorialism as a universal and practical Principle.

I. — In the posthumous work of Frederic Sec-
ond of Prussia, entitled, " The History of my own
Times," is the following passage. After stating
that Locke and Bayle had in part loosened and torn
asunder the bandages of error, he adds: " Other
sages also have appeared ; such as Fontenelle and
Voltaire in France ; the celebrated Thomasius in
Germany; Hobbes, Collins, Shaftesbury, and Bol-
ingbroke in England. These great men and their
disciples have given religion a mortal blozv." Such,
in the time of Frederic the Great, as he is com-
monly designated, was the opinion of many. And
indeed it is the opinion of many to this day, that
philosophy is antagonistical to religion ; that reli-
gion is destitute of a philosophic basis; and that its
great and saving truths are likely to be unsettled
and overthrown by the repeated and heavy assaults
which philosophy makes upon them. So far from
accepting such an opinion, we cannot doubt that

254

ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

philosophic inquiries, conducted with patience and
candor, will ultimately show a very different result ;
and that philosophy, in the completion and just ex-
ercise of its own accepted cognitive methods, will
be found standing strongly in the explanation and
defence of religion,- and not in antagonism to it. If
it is admitted that religion, in being subjected to a
philosophical analysis, is not explainable by the
speculations of Hobbes and Condillac and of others
of the so-called Materialistic School, some of whom
are mentioned by the Prussian king ; and if its prob-
lems are beyond the mastery of Fichte and Schell-
ing and Hegel of a later day, and others who are
their disciples or opposers, yet in the progress of
time and in the necessary combination of the Sen-
suous and Super-sensuous philosophical Schools,
and with the added light which is gently breaking
from above in the profound teachings of Christ in
the soul, the depths of religion, except so far as
they are necessarily beyond the reach of finite fac-
ulties, will at last be fathomed, and its mysteries ex-
plained and made clear.

2. — The subject of this chapter is Mediatorialism ;
a subject which cannot be mentioned without at
once leading our thoughts to Christ as the embodi-
ment of the mediatorial principle. Mediatorialism
is the name of the principle ; Mediator is the name

MEDIA TORIALISM.

255

of the person or being mediating. And as media-
torship can exist practically and personally, only on
the basis of a mediatorial principle or truth antece-
dently existing, the whole subject comes within the
sphere and the recognitions of philosophy. In
other words it is a part of the Absolute Religion.

It is conceded to the claims of philosophy, that
one of its functions is to deal with principles, in dis-
tinction from forms and manifestations; including
the relation of principles, whatever they may be, to
their results. Philosophy, in the higher and diviner
sense, which is the only true sense, so far from be-
ing at war with the massive and truly glorious dog-
matisms of Christianity, shows the divinity of the
wisdom which gives them their dogmatic form and
place ; and also defends them in the eternity and
necessity of their subjective foundations.

3. — This subject presents itself in various as-
pects. Mediatorialism in its results is giving. To
give, implies gifts in possession and as there is but
one original source or fountain of such gifts, to give
is primarily and eminently the prerogative of God.
To give, inasmuch as God would not be God with-
out giving, is an eternal Truth ; the spirit of giving
is the eternal Life ; and mediatorialism, which is
based upon the fact of innumerable diversities in-
volving innumerable wants, is the WAV, by means

256

ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

of which the Life carries the Truth into effect. It
is in this sense that Christ is called the Way, as
well as the Truth and the Life. Standing in the
relation of God " manifested in the flesh " or the
God-man, and thus harmonizing mentally and physi-
cally with the attributes of the race, he stands in the
position of the distributive channel of the measure-
less infinitudes of God into the finite measurements
of all subordinate existences. Mediatorialism is an
unalterable law. The Cross as a principle and medi-
atorialism as a principle, though the latter may be
regarded as logically subsequent in time, and in
some sense subordinate in position, are connected
together in close and inseparable relationship as
means and end. The goods of the universe, which
exist necessarily in God as their source or fountain
are, by the law of the Cross, to be distributed, and
to manifest themselves in their appropriate forms
and results, in all degrees of existence from the
highest to the lowest.

4. — There are some things which are ultimate,
and one is, that the infinitudes of God could not by
any conceivable possibility find their way into the
possession of finite beings, except by methods
which recognize and harmonize with the fact of
their finiteness. But the way from one to the other
is founded in the nature of things, and is one of the

MEDIA TORIALISM.

257

products of " eternal generation ; " grand, mysteri-
ous, intuitionally as well as scripturally revealed, and
banishing forever all those doubts which would sep-
arate God from his children. God the Absolute and
God manifested in the finite form, and manifested in
part for this very purpose, are mediatorially united
in Christ, and in a way so wonderful, that He lays
one hand on the great Infinitude of existence, and
with the other touches the poorest and lowest of
human beings ; and brings them into each other's
presence ; and linking the last with the first, and
the highest with the lowest, harmonizes the diversi-
ties of the universe.

5. — What was true of Christ, with the limitations
which naturally suggest themselves in connection
with his special position and character, is true of his
people. As was said of Christ, so it can be said of
the true follower of Christ, " virtue goes out of
him." On the supposition that the true Life power
is in him, which is of course involved in the fact of
his being a true Christian, it will always be found,
that he is a channel, a method of communication, a
mediatorial gateway ; and that he is so, not by a
temporary and arbitrary arrangement, but by the
constitution of things and the divine necessities of
the case. So that men cannot look upon him with-
out being blessed with the divine light which beams

258 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

from his countenance ; and they cannot talk with
him without feeling almost sensibly the divinely
inspirational weight of his words.

6. — There is one attribute of the mediatorial
principle, which is worthy of special notice ; it is the
attribute or law of increase. The intuitional inspi-
rations of Christ have announced this law in re-
markable words ; not the less striking perhaps,
because they are negative as well as affirmative in
the form : " He that hath, to him shall be given ;
and from him that hath not, shall be taken even
that which he hath." He who is not a true subject
of mediatorial life, in not accepting the great law of
instrumentality in goodness, cannot grow ; but is
deprived of the gifts, whatever they may be, which
he already has. And the law of increase corre-
sponds to this result ; the increase in the power or
capacity of the principle itself being greater or less,
in proportion to the beneficial results attending its
own practical exercise. He who does good, and
every time that he exercises goodness, and in the
degree that he does good, grows in the power of
doing good, so that the benevolent activity of the
soul is practically and resultingly the growth of the
soul.

7. — How delightful is the thought, that it is our
privilege not only to be mediators, but to grow as

MEDIA TORTALISM. 259

mediators ; not only to be channels of good to others,
but by a fixed and ultimate law to become wider and
deeper as channels ; not merely to be the little rivu-
lets that flow on with small results, but to swell into
mighty rivers that nourish cities and nations, and
float the commerce of the world.

8. — Such is the brief outline of the doctrine of
mediatorship when, without any disrespect to the
value of the dogmatical expression, it is subjected,
in accordance with the progressive demands of the
age, to the inquiries of analytic thought and reason.
And we do not see that anything is lost by it. The
mediatorial principle is a permanent and universal
one ; existing everywhere and under all possible
varieties of circumstance.

9. — Humanity, in the consciousness of its great
needs, calls for the announcement of spiritual truths,
which shall be practically carried out. Mediatorial-
ism is one of them. What the world wants to-day,
and what, with its " Macedonian cry," it calls for
to-day, is mediators ; men who are trained in the
self-denying school of the great mediatorial captain
and leader ; men who, by the internal law of their
being, are mediatorially alive. What but this great
resource, can solve among other things the terrible
social problems, which press upon our suffering race?
The heart trembles when, joiner below the surface

26o ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

of things, it everywhere beholds the social and moral
volcano on which our present selfish society stands.
The millions in our cities who are suffering in pov-
erty and wrong and crime, are restlessly demanding
the day of their redemption. There is no peace,
but in justice. No justice but in the law of the
Cross, which is practically useless, unless it is medi-
atorially complemented and carried out. Mediato-
rialism is Christ in action. The contest may be long
and severe, but the benevolent principle of mediator-
ship, which, in receiving good only to communicate
it, hears all groans and wipes all tears, will gently
draw out the deep and smouldering fires which lie
around and beneath us, and prevent the threatening
convulsions.

io. — One of the results of the great principle of
mediatorship is, that it associates us with angels.
The mediatorial principle, in being a principle and
not merely an event or incident, is not only eternal
but universal. It is the law of men ; it is also the
angelic law ; and is not more the true life of the
earth than it is of the heavens. Angels, and all be-
ings in the heavenly spheres, are the embodiments of
mediatorial activity. The scriptures affirm it ; and
if they did not, it could not be otherwise. It is of
these high and holy beings it is said, that they are
" all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for

MEDIA TOJRIALISM. 26 1

them, who shall be heirs of salvation." So that it
can be said in a true interior sense that, in becom-
ing mediatorial, and in thus falling into the line of
harmony with all good and useful activities whether
above or below us, "ye are come unto Mount Sion
and unto the city of the living God, and to an innu-
merable company of angels."

CHAPTER XXX.

Explanation of Terms regarding the Essential Life,

TRUE love which is known in the writings of the
devout Mystics and Quietists under the denomina-
tion of Pure Love, is the love of existence. In
other words it is of the nature of true or pure love,
and is that which constitutes what it is, to attach
itself, not to the form of things, but to the essences
of things. And what is perhaps equally important
in the discrimination of its nature, it loves indepen-
dently of forms or modes of existence ; it seeks truly
and earnestly the happiness of whatever is capable
of happiness, whatever may be its character or the
form of its existence.

In the separation of that primary existence,
which we denominate being from all its incidents
and diversities of form and character, such being, in
its essential nature, necessarily presents itself as a
unit. And hence it is in loving the unit or oneness
of being, we virtually and truly love all being.

TERMS REGARDING ESSENTIAL LIFE. 263

And accordingly it can be said, when man is
born not transitionally, or in part, but in the true
birth, he is then a " partaker of the Divine Nature/'
He is in God, and God in him. Man must necessa-
rily retain his individuality for the reason that the
finite cannot be the Infinite. It is individualism, or
finite personality living, breathing and acting in
God. Let us illustrate the subject a little further in
connection with a common remark, namely, that
everything has its sphere of life. Trees and plants
have their spheres. The lower animals have their
sphere. And this remark is true of men, as it is of
everything else. Man has his sphere. The will of
man's perceptions and motives is necessarily bound-
ed, in the first instance, by the limited will of his
position. In his individual capacity he acts in his
individual sphere. But the truth and perfection of
his action is realized, when his action as an individ-
ual and in. his own sphere harmonizes with the truth,
the motives and the holiness of the Universal Sphere,
of which God is the centre. It is then that his
sight becomes clear ; he sees with God's eye, he
hears with God's ear.

These views help us to explain certain expres-
sions, which are found from time to time in writers.
In the experience, for instance, of the state of Pure
Love, the individual, who is the subject of this high

264 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

and transforming experience, may be said, in a cer-
tain sense, to be merged and mingled in that which
is out of himself, and even to become " extinct'' and
" lost " in God. Expressions of this kind, and among
others the term " self-annihilation," are found not un-
frequently in the writings of some devout Catholics ;
nor are they wholly unknown in Protestant religious
literature. But in using such terms, which are
spiritually and profoundly significant, the literal
meaning must be somewhat modified. It is not
meant to be said of the person to whom such terms
are applied, that he is extinct or lost, in the absolute
sense of the expressions and in the matter of dis-
tinct personality. He is not lost, is not " annihi-
lated," in the fact of that actual self-consciousness,
which constitutes him a distinct and responsible exis-
tence; but only in separateness of interests and
hopes ; in those reflex acts which turn the mind
too much upon our own joys and purposes ; in
everything which makes us forgetful of the wants
and happiness of others, by incidentally seeking our-
selves. Such an one, retaining his personality but
expanding it without limitation, knows enough of
himself as an individual to know that he is not his
own, that his soul has become a living fountain which
takes its rise from God, and flows out to all the
boundless variety of existences. Names, sect, rank,

TERMS REGARDING ESSENTIAL LIFE. 265

party, color, become indistinct, and are comparatively
lost in the one idea of Universal Brotherhood.

10. — The man " born again " and fully complet-
ed in the second birth, is not only humanitarian in
the highest sense of that term, but is the holy or
divine man. The man humanitarian is something
more than the man individual. And the man di-
vine is something more than the man humanitarian.
The difference at each gradation not only exists as
a difference, but it is great. Such a man, in the
wide and resistless movement of the divine Spirit
within him, not only transcends the restricted
bounds of individualism, not only passes beyond the
limits of kindred and country, but beyond those of
humanity itself; and embraces not only the brother-
hood of man but all existences, both those above
him and those below him. Nothing but the bound-
lessness of existence, which is ever developing itself,
nothing but the boundlessness of benevolence, which
is ever pouring happiness into existences, nothing
but the Infinite of creation and the Infinite of love,
nothing but God himself in the widest and noblest
sense of that glorious term, can meet and satisfy his
measureless sympathies.

Holy Love, in being a perpetual life, is also a
perpetual development ; — it never ceases its action.
To cease to act, would be to cease to live. It is
12

266 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

not to be supposed, therefore, that God will love,
for some definite length of time, which shall be the
completion of some marked period or epoch ; — for
instance, till the supposed destruction of the world
by fire, or till the hypothetical day of the final
Judgment, — and then having separated the wicked
from the righteous will cease to love them. He
loves them, and from the nature of the case, he
must continue to love them. There is not a sinner
in Hades or Hell, (which however is only another
name for the darkness and discordancy of the lowest
sphere of spiritual existences,) who is not sought
after, and watched over. This is the great and glo-
rious truth, which makes all heaven ring with joy,
that God is God forever, and that He is Love for-
ever ; although' it may not follow, and it does not
necessarily follow, that this love, unceasing though
it be, will be accepted and be made available in the
case of all those towards whom it is directed. That
is one of the things which is to be left ; because it
is one of the things which takes hold of the Eternal
and the Infinite. If Love is absolute and unchange-
able, freedom also, as an attribute of moral beings,
is absolute and unchangeable. God himself, who in
being the absolute truth, can never fail to respect
the absolute truth, and will never coerce a sinner
into heaven ; for that would only be placing him in

TERMS REGARDING ESSENTIAL LIFE. 26y

a deeper Hell. This would be a violation of fixed
and unchangeable truths and relations. It would
be an impossibility.

But in some other place, this amazing subject
should be explained more fully; — with appropriate
facts, arguments, and illustrations. Moral facts and
relations are just as fixed and unchangeable as
mathematical facts and relations. What we wish to
say now is, that Love which is Life, under no con-
tingencies whatever will ever cease to act. And
although there is a great gulf between heaven and
hell, it is true that " Christ, who preached to the
spirits in prison," has mighty moral power by means
of moral suggestions, and that place may be chang-
ed by change of character. It is thus that Truth
and goodness are reconciled ; but curiosity stands
rebuked. It is a mark of a godlike finite mind to
leave much to the Infinite mind without inquiry.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Evidences of the Existence of the Essential Life.

I. — How shall it be known by others, or how shall
we determine for ourselves, whether this element of
a true and everlasting life is in us or not? — an in-
quiry so important, that it has called forth at various
times such thoughtful works as that of Shepard of
Cambridge on the Parable of the Virgins, Scougal's
Life of God in the Soul of man, and President Ed-
wards' Treatise on the Religious Affections. The
great Teacher, who had the life in Himself, and who
is the source of life to others, gives the answer to
the question before us, in those simple but signifi-
cant words: " By their fruits ye shall know them."

2. — The mind of Christ, speaking after the man-
ner of men, was not only constituted with a highly
poetic tendency, as some modern critics have justly
acknowledged, but was eminently thoughtful, and
was by no means destitute of a philosophical ele-
ment. And He gives one of the best evidences of
this trait of character, and that he knew especially

EVIDENCES OF ESSENTIAL LIFE.

269

how to deal with mental questions, in generally
communicating his great doctrines, not in abstract
statements, but in familiar illustrations, adapted to
the mental development of those around him. Ac-
quainted as he was with the most interior relation
of things, he does not say to the multitude whom
he addresses, " Every effect has its cause," or some-
thing of that kind ; but says, in kindly sympathy
with the feeble intellcctualism of his uneducated
hearers, " Men do not gather grapes from thorns,
nor fijjs from thistles." A beautiful illustration, set
ting clearly forth the great philosophical principle,
that the character of the effect, whether good or
evil, is necessarily, and by a law of being, a revela-
tion of the nature of its cause. In knowing the re-
sults, we know the causative principle ; in knowing
the fruits, we know the vital force from which they
spring. We feel at liberty therefore to affirm, that
the good man, being what he is, does not do good
from self-interested calculations; but on the princi-
ple involved in Christ's illustration of the tree and
its fruits, does good because he cannot do other-
wise ; it being the law of a truly good and holy na-
ture to do good. Such a man is in the true life :
and may be said in a high and sacred sense to be a
living man. " He that hath the Son," says the
Apostle John, " hath life, and he that hath not the

270 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

Son of God, hath not life." The living man is like
a star, which shines because it is a star ; is like a
fountain, which flows because it is a fountain ; is like
a flower, which gives out its fragrance because it is
a flower ; is like a tree, which bears fruit because it
is a tree. In other words a living man in the high-
er sense of the term, is, by the necessities of his na-
ture a man of out-goings, of activities, of fruits or
works ; having the practical working and manifesta-
tion of his earthly career hung round with the flow-
ers and the fruits of beneficence.

3. — Such is the answer of Christ to the question
before us ; and it is an answer which will bear the
most thoughtful consideration. But it will perhaps
be suggested here, that the evidence which is thus
furnished, it being objective or outward, is evidence
to others only, and not to the man himself. But it
is to be remembered that, while the fruits are out-
ward, the causative principle is inward. And in the
correlation of things, felt and accepted in the uni-
versal intuitions of men, they go together. The
outward fruits, it is true, are matters of outward ob-
servation ; but the outward fruits reveal the fact of
the inward principle, which stands as the source or
the motive of action, and then adjusting our affir-
mations, not to the outward results, but the inward
cause, we say at once on the basis of mental knowl-

EVIDENCES OF ESSENTIAL LIFE.

271

edge, that the cause, revealed in the man's own
breast, comes within the sphere of consciousness.
The man therefore who is really in the outward
truth, in the matter of good fruits or good doing,
will know himself also to be in the inward or essen-
tial truth, because his consciousness cannot testify
to a falsehood. It is in accordance with this view,
that it is said in the first Epistle of John of the be-
liever in Christ, that he " hath the witness in him-
self." And the Apostle Paul also, in the Epistle to
the Romans asserts, that "the Spirit itself," who
always harmonizes with the truth, "beareth witness
with our spirit ; " in other words, concurrently tes-
tifies, in such ways as are known to himself, to the
affirmation of our own consciousness, " that we are
the children of God."

Such is the evidence in the case. The principles
involved in it are scriptural, and at the same time
are in accordance with human reason. They bear
at least the seal and signature of the great Master.
Practical good doing, involving as it does the " in-
ward witness," is the true test of the life of God in
the soul.

But it is proper to add at this point, that the ac-
tivity, resulting in good doing or good fruits, is not
always in the same method or form, but is suscepti-
ble of many diversities. It is apparently a fixed

272

ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

and permanent principle in the constitution of
things, that every thing which exists finds some-
where its correspondent or counterpart ; and accord-
ingly that which is good, will be found to be sup-
plemented with occasions of good ; and that which
is evil, finds itself surrounded with occasions of evil,
so that every living principle, attracting around its
own vitalizing centre the occasions and opportuni-
ties of its exercise, forms as it were a habitation for
itself to dwell in. And yet it is true that the habi-
tation, the surrounding framework and dwelling-
place of occasions, is not always specifically the
same; but in the multitude of its facts and inci-
dents, notwithstanding its fixed relations to its cen-
tral attracting element, is exceedingly diversified.
Nor is there any rule which can definitely ascertain
and specify beforehand, what the precise nature of
that diversity will be ; in other words, in what par
ticular way each one will act out his inward life in
its correspondent good or evil ; for it is one of those
things, which, in taking hold of the immeasurable
infinitude of facts and relations, necessarily lies hid-
den in the depths of infinite wisdom.

4. — While therefore it is necessary for each one
to be good in order to fulfill his highest obligations,
and to secure the highest happiness, it is not possi-
ble for any one to say beforehand, precisely in what

EVIDENCES OF ESSENTIAL LIFE. 273

way this goodness will manifest itself. And if
we cannot beforehand lay down the law for our-
selves in this matter, so, also, we cannot always ac-
cept the law or rule of action from the opinion or
dictates of others, who may be supposed to be
equally ignorant. But having the life of goodness
as something central and essential, we shall not di-
rect its outflowing by means of arbitrary calcula-
tions and adjustments ; shall not do this or that,
shall not go in this or that direction in our own
wills; but shall rather find ourselves the quiet and
almost unconscious subjects of its divine tendency,
to move, and move only in God's time, in God's
way, and in God's degree. And the result is, as
God directs us and not man, and with all the knowl-
edge which God alone possesses, that there are very
numerous diversities ; and such as could not be
safely originated or directed by mere human wis-
dom. Hence it is that one good man will be a
preacher at home ; another, with the same essential
life in his soul, will be a missionary to the heathen.
One, taking the direction of outward activity, will
cry aloud and spare not, like Luther or Whitfield ;
and another, by an interior leading equally divine,
will worship God, after the manner of Penn or
George Fox, in the temple of inward stillness. And
such diversities, all springing from the same essen-

T2-

2jA ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

tial unity, will be all and equally pleasing to God.
In all probability, there was much speculation in the
earlier ages about that solitary and mysterious man,
Thomas a Kempis ; and many perhaps thought he
was an unprofitable Christian ; but God, neverthe-
less, had a work for him to do, and was working in
him ; and at last the fruitage of his solitary medita-
tions appeared in that well known and eminently
spiritual work, the Imitation of Christ, on which the
hungry souls of successive generations have fed.

7. — And similar diversities of result will appear
in things which are regarded as secular; but which,
in a true state of society, will be brought more fully
and distinctly within the sphere of religion. The
mathematical sciences, and those sciences which in-
volve more or less a mathematical calculation as their
basis, are often placed in the popular estimation,
outside of the religious sphere ; at least in a great
degree. And it is oftentimes plainly hinted, per-
haps on account of their supposed closer connection
with the head than the heart, that the mathematician
and the philosopher in their solitary studies, might
be more profitably employed in a prayer meeting.
This may sometimes be the case. But it is no pre-
sumption to say, as a general principle, that the re-
ligious character of a man's work does not so much
depend upon the place where he is, as upon his in-

EVIDENCES OE ESSENTIAL LIEE.

275

spiration ; does not turn so much upon the thing
which he docs, as upon the question whether God
calls him to do it, and whether he acts from a true
inward life. We do not find it stated of Sir Isaac
Newton that he appeared much in public, especially
on occasions of a religious nature ; and yet, remem-
bering that God acts through a diversity of gifts and
methods, we can not easily think of him in his silent
and protracted inquiries, pursued for objects which
he felt to be connected with the progress of the hu-
man race, without almost consciously feeling, that the
Spirit of God was with him, and was the true inspira-
tion of his profound thoughts. His reply, when
asked by some one in what way he arrived at his dis-
coveries, was, that he " kept the subject constantly
before him, and waited till the first dawning opened,
slowly, by little and little, into a full and clear light."
This is a statement of a condition of mind, at-
tended as it was in the case of Newton with great
unselfishness, simplicity, and lowliness of spirit, which
is eminently favorable to the presence and opera-
tions of the Spirit of God. And so of many other
cases. A great Continent, for instance, was to be
discovered ; lands and forests and mighty rivers, long
hidden in darkness were to be brought to light ; and
therefore it was that God, who had inspired great
thoughts and aspirations in the mind of Columbus

276 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

thoughts and aspirations correspondent to the
work to be done, did not send him to the convent
of La Rabida to affiliate with the monks, and to
become a member there, and to occupy his life in
the prayers and services of a monastery ; but clothed
him in the garb of a sailor, and sending him with
his frail vessels from the port of Palos, required the
fulfillment of his mission on the stormy waves of the
ocean — a mission, secular as it was in its outward
aspects, which had a close connection with God's
providential plans, and with Christ's reign upon
earth.

8. — And so it is and ought to be everywhere.
The diversities of practical religion are commen-
surate with the diversities of practical life. Every-
thing, which is fitting to be done, is fitting to be re-
ligiously done ; and furthermore, it cannot by any
possibility be done fittingly, unless it is done reli-
giously. Religion is necessary in the pulpit and the
prayer-meeting ; and it is equally necessary in direct-
ing the plough of the husbandman, and in working
with the tool of the mechanic. The hard hand of
the sailor needs it, and the head of the philosopher
cannot do without it. And there is a sense also, in
which the beautiful saying of Milton may be accept-
ed as a religious truth :

They also serve, who only stand and wait.

EVIDENCES OF ESSENTIAL LIFE. 27 J

9. — The tree is known by its fruits. And the
evidence of a truly divine life, as Christ still more
specifically teaches us, is found in good fruits. They
may be diversified in form and flavor and other re-
spects, but they must be good. And accordingly
the question still remains to be answered : If the
existence of a true inward life is known not from
fruit alone, but from the additional and essential in-
cident of their goodness, in what way or by what
signs shall we ascertain the fact of such goodness ?
The answer to this vital inquiry is to be found, not
in the doubtful or the diluted doctrines of human
philosophy, but in the soul-searching precepts and
principles of Christ. Who can read the Sermon on
the Mount, the Gospel and Epistles of John, the
13th chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians,
and other like portions of the New Testament, es-
pecially with the commentary of the acts and doings
of Christ himself, without a full conviction, that the
fruitage which grew in the heart and life of Christ, is
destined to be born, and is required to be born, in
the hearts and lives of his followers ? We answer
therefore in general terms, and without going fully
into this particular topic at present, that a life of
good fruits, ascertained and known to be such, is,
and must be a true Christ life. And some of the
marks or characteristics of the life of Christ in the

278 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

soul, if we rightly understand the Scriptures which
have been referred to, are, first, it is necessarily an-
tagonistical to evil ; second, it ultimately and always
conquers in its contest with evil ; third, it carries on
its victorious contest not with " carnal weapons," but
on entirely new principles. It conquers jealousy,
not by becoming jealous itself, but by being without
jealousy. It conquers envy, not by being envious
itself, but by being without envy. It conquers
pride and ambition, not by seeking the high places
of earthly power, but by taking a low place, and by
becoming the servant of all. It conquers hatred,
not by hating and smiting in return, but by pity and
love. It conquers reviling and cursing, not by ut-
terances, which are like them in bitterness, but by
patience, and by kind words and blessings. It
bleeds and dies upon the cross, but it bursts the
bars of the tomb, and ascends to heaven. Its ar-
mory is found in the essentiality and the mighty
energy of its own life of Love ; and it is entitled to
its place of victor, not only by the skill and power
of Love as the true and mighty " sword of the
Spirit," but by the unchangeable truth and the celes-
tial ascendancy of its position.

Standing in the pure and high places, and in the
power of God himself, it looks down with calmness
upon the various forms of personal hostility, to

EVIDENCES OF ESSENTIAL LIFE. 2yg

which it is oftentimes subject. It is true that under
such circumstances of ingratitude, opposition, and
hostility, love is very apt to take the form of pity ;
but love, in being pity adopts a modification of its
action, without ceasing to be love.

CHAPTER XXXII.

The Essential Life Reaches to all Existences.

The Essential Life, though limited in its sphere
of action, is the same in man as it is in God. It may-
bear different names ; it may be called Life, or Es-
sential Life, or Eternal Life, or God's Life, or the
Life of God in the soul of man, or Love, or Pure Love,
or Holy Love, or Perfect Love, or Holiness, or the
Holy Spirit, or the Holy Ghost, or the Christ
Spirit, or the Inward Christ, or Christ in the
Soul, whatever may be the designation it bears, it is
always the same in the essentiality of its nature ;
the same in the beginning, the same now, and for-
ever. It follows from this, that the soul, which is
born into this true and essential life, a life which sees
with the spirit, and which hears and understands with
the heart, will tenderly recognize the presence and
activity of this divinity of life, and will love it, in
all things that exist. Hence it is, that Christ in the
Soul, which is one of the beautiful names it bears,
loves inanimate nature, loves trees and flowers.

ESSENTIAL LIFE REACHES ALL EXISTENCES. 28 1

" Behold the lilies of the field ; they toil not, neither
do they spin ; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon
in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."
Christ in the soul saw that glory. The outward eye,
resting merely upon outward manifestations, saw only
the outward forms ; saw the color and the flowing
outline ; but Christ in the soul, which instinctively
recognizes its own nature under all diversities, saw
the Christ principle at work in the flower ; the eter-
nal goodness and wisdom shining in the interior of
the flower ; and its glory was greater than the glory
of Solomon. God, who takes care of trees and
flowers, takes care also and in a special sense of
animals ; and a recognition of the rights of the
lower animals and a true sympathy and love for
them, is a part of the inward experience of those
who have God in the soul. If any are disposed to
regard such experiences as of little value in them-
selves, or as unauthorized by the Scriptures, let
them turn to the 104th Psalm, that grand outburst
of God's love for animals ; and read there the feel-
ings of the great throbbing Heart of the Universe,
who planted the cedars of Lebanon for the nest of
birds, the fir-tree for the house of the stork, and
who spread the great ocean, not merely for naviga-
tors' ships and the anchors and cables of commerce,
but for the play-ground of the leviathan, and for

282 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

creeping things innumerable both small and great.
To the heart that inwardly understands and digests
this wonderful poem, this great hymn of love, every
sphere of life is, and must be sacred.

There was a remarkable man who lived in Italy
in the twelfth century ; a man so gifted in intellect
and so devout in heart, and so abundant in labors,
that he has left his impress on succeeding ages. It
is related of this man, St. Francis of Assisi, that
to him all nature was full of God ; and that his re-
ligious consciousness, grounded in and quickened by
the inward realizations of celestial love, was so ex-
panded that it embraced every thing, animate and
inanimate, men and animals. He believed, as all
those who are in the same degree of celestial love
are always likely to believe, that all the departments
of nature were designed to be connected by a com-
munity of life ; that the broken bonds which once
united them are waiting for a restoration ; that
man, with faith enough and love enough, shall once
more control the winds and waves; and that the
lower animals, like the dove of Noah, and the ravens
of Elijah, and the lions of the den of the Chaldean
prophet, shall sympathize with his sorrows, and ad-
minister to his necessities. Our doctrine is sup-
ported abundantly by the Scriptures, as we believe,
that there is something beyond the brotherhood of

ESSENTIAL LIFE REACHES ALL EXISTENCES. 283

• humanity, namely, the brotherhood of life ; some-
thing beyond the love of humanity, the wider and
deeper love of everything that exists. And we ap-
peal in support of it, to the personal history and the
recorded convictions of many devout men in all
ages. And we may go further and say, that the in-
stincts of the human race, and the sympathies and
aspirations of all great minds, especially those that
kindle with the divine elements of poetic life, all
point in the same direction. The poems of the
early Greeks and Romans are full of this tendency.
The poems of Cowper and Burns, of Wordsworth
and Shakespeare, furnish us examples and proofs.
The poem of Burns on the Wounded Hare was not
a sentimental or hypocritical expression of grief;
but had its birth in the heart, and was as deeply
true to nature in one direction, as the sublime
stanzas to Mary in Heaven are in another. Men
and animals, sundered and rendered antagonistical,
are nevertheless one family. And when the Life of
God in the soul becomes on a wide scale, the inher-
itance of a regenerated humanity, then all the lower
forms of created nature, recognizing at once the re-
lation of superiority and inferiority, will take their
position in subordination ; and as there will be every-
where a correlation and reciprocity, not only of
forces but of interests, the facts of subordination on

284

ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

the one hand and of supremacy on the other will
constitute the elements of permanent and universal
harmony. Then the lion and the lamb will lie down
together; conflicts will cease, and the brotherhood
of humanity will be supplemented and co-ordinated
with the brotherhood of existence.

The man who does not recognize the handiwork
of God in the lower animals, and does not sympa-
thize with God in his regard for them, does not
bear in his bosom the highest elements of thought,
of inspiration, and character. Strike from the hu-
man mind this noble tendency, and how many po-
ems, and paintings, and sculptures are lost. Take
from the beautifully sympathetic heart of Rosa Bon-
heur her love of animals, and her immortal pencil
falls to the ground. We cannot spare the birds, nor
the dogs, nor the horses, nor the fishes that swim in
the sea. Why is it that the stranger, ascending the
summit of the Capitoline Hill in Rome, and behold-
ing the wonderful equestrian statue which ancient
art has erected there, finds his eye and his admiring
thought directed as much to the majestic and in-
spiring attitude of the horse, as to that of the impe-
rial Caesar who bestrides him ? I saw the dust of
Wellington carried to its tomb, and in the long pro-
cession composed of the eminent men of England, a
place was reverently left for the horse of the con-

ESSENTIAL LIFE REACHES ALL EXISTENCES. 285

queror ; and as he walked alone, amid the sound of
melancholy trumpets, he divided the sympathy of
the multitude with their sorrows for his fallen mas-
ter. The horse of Alexander, the Macedonian con-
queror, has his place in history ; and the historic rec-
ord, recognizing the ties of higher and lower forms of
existence, has narrated in more than one instance,
the affection and - devotedness of the faithful dog ;
and statuary has erected monuments to his mem-
ory.

Allow me to close with an incident, which made
a strong impression upon me. A few years ago I
read in the newspapers that a little girl in the town
of Hingham, in Massachusetts, had tamed the fishes
in a small lake near her father's residence. I came
to the little girl's home, which was near the small
lake or pond. Knocking at the door, and making
such apology as I was able for a visit so early, I re-
marked to the mother, that I had come for the pur-
pose of seeing the fishes, over which her little
daughter was said to have obtained a remarkable
control. Readily accepting my explanations, she
pointed to a place on the brink of the water, and
said that her daughter would soon come down there.
I had not stood there long before a little girl, appar-
ently anxious not to detain me, came running down.
Seating herself on a rock near the shore, she called

286 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

aloud to the fishes ; calling them sometimes by the
names of their tribes, and sometimes by particular
names which she had given them. There was one,
a large one in which she was particularly interested,
which she called Cato. But Cato either did not
hear her, or was not in a hurry to come. She made
an apology for the fishes, saying that it was earlier
than she had been in the habit of calling them, and
that they had not yet left their places of slumber.
But repeating still more loudly the invitation of her
sweet voice, they soon began to make their appear-
ance. The smaller ones came first, and then the
larger ones of many varieties ; and at last Cato, who
was a sort of king and counsellor in this finny con-
gregation, came among them. Delighted with this
renewed visit of their virgin queen, although they
seemed to be conscious it was rather early in the
morning, they thrust their heads above the water ;
and she fed them from her hand. And I fed them
also.

Observing something peculiar at a little distance
in the water, I was surprised to see two turtles
making their way towards her. Her voice of affec-
tion had penetrated beneath their dark hard shells.
And I noticed that they came with great effort and
zeal ; as if afraid of being too late at this festival of
love. One of them, as soon as they reached the

ESSENTIAL LIFE REACHES ALL EXISTENCES.

287

shore, scrambled out of the water, and climbed
upon the rock beside her, and she fed them both.
I shall not easily forget this interesting scene ; this
little episode of millenial humanity.

THE MAIDEN FISH-TAMER.

Oh maiden of the woods and wave,

With footsteps in the morning dew !
From oozy bed and watery cave,

The tenants of the lake who drew,
Thy voice of love the mystery knew,
Which makes old bards and prophets true.

They tell us of that better day,

When love shall rule the world again ;

When crime and fraud shall pass away,
And beast and bird shall dwell with men ,

When seas shall marry with the land,

And fishes kiss a maiden's hand.

The iron age has done its best

With trump and sword and warriors slain ;

But could not tame the eagle's nest,
Nor lead the lion by the mane ;

With all its strength and all its woe,

There was an art it did not know.

'Twas fitting, that a maid like thee,
In childhood's bright and happy hour,

Should t-each the world the mystery,
That white-rob'd innocence has power;

That love the victory can gain,

Which is not won by millions slain.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

The Power of the Essential or True Life.

Our principal object in this chapter is the con-
sideration of the Power of the true life, not in its
philosophy but in its practical results ; not in its
highest and primal manifestations, which in some
degree transcend human insight, but in its subor-
dinate manifestations, and particularly as it is mani-
fested in men. The methods in which it manifests
itself are very various. In the case of the Christian
orator, for instance, it will sometimes, under the in-
spiration of essential life, speak in terms of rich and
glowing eloquence, matching and more than match-
ing the standards of the world's great masters ; but
not less frequently its words are few and simple ;
perhaps an apothegm or a parable, but coming from
the well-spring of the life, they touch the hearts of
the people, and open the fountains of living salva-
tion. And what is remarkable, it is sometimes the
case, that the absolute silence of the man of God

POWER OF ESSENTIAL OR TRUE LIFE. 28o

will have more effect than the noisy declamation of

the man. who is without God. Power goes out of

him as it went out of Jesus. If it speaks in the

mighty words of Paul and Apollos, it speaks also in

the silence of a loving John, when he leans his head

on a brother's bosom. What more effective and

touching eloquence than that of the Son of Man,

when, in the midst of a stormy and cruel tribunal,

he " uttered not a word ; " and the Roman governor,

struck with this sublime disregard of the precedents

of a worldly life, " marveled greatly/' And there

are some specific modifications of the great variety

of its forms, which are worthy of notice. One of

the most remarkable things pertaining to the Power

of the Life, is, that it manifests itself often, not by

the, antagonism of the same forces, as when we meet

evil with evil and return blow for blow, as when

sword clashes with sword and cannon rebounds to

cannon ; but conquers the violence that attacks it, by

the resistance and antagonism of what is found in

the opposite. The stormy cloud is melted by the

sunbeam ; the lion is tamed and led captive by the

lamb ; and the little child plays, with its life and

beauty unharmed, on the cockatrice's den. In all

this there is a deep philosophy, which transcends

the conceptions of a heart, that knows no higher

2g0 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

school than that of a self-hood which excludes the
living God.

And now we will say further, coming more with-
in the practical sphere of the subject, that the Pow-
er of the Life, that form of power which pierces and
breaks the stony hearts of men, and is blessed of
God in the great matter of renovating and purifying
their perverted natures, is not found greatly, if at
all, in mere intellectualism. Many facts are a con-
firmation of this. There are preachers who have
eminently the gifts of perception and reasoning, but
have little influence with the masses. Even if at
certain times their reasonings harmonize with the
truth they produce, and can produce but little ef-
fect, so long as the soul from which they come, is
felt by the hearers to contradict in experience, what
their reasonings affirm and try to prove as a princi-
ple. Again, the element of vitalizing power is not
found in every form of mere emotionality ; we refer
particularly to what may be called aesthetic emo
tionality. There are preachers, and other profess
edly religious teachers, who add to intellectual pow
ers a cultivated taste, and adorn their reasoning
with the arts of rhetoric. Their sermons, consid-
ered as the exercises of intellect or the imagination,
enlist the curiosity of men and please their fancy,
but have little living power. There was a Ger-

POWER OF ESSENTIAL OR TRUE LIFE. 2QI

man preacher of the 14th century — we refer to the
justly celebrated John Taulcr of Cologne, who
stood unmatched in learning and in intellectual and
aesthetic eloquence, but he had little power and
influence, at least in a way which satisfied his "con-
viction of what ought to be the result, until he was
led into the way of truth and life, by a poor, uncul-
tured man of the people, whom as one of the weak
and despised things of the world, God had chosen
and made the instrument of this mighty influence.
The few unlearned men, who went forth from Jeru-
salem in the beginning of the Christian era, were
not allowed to go until they were endued with pow-
er from on high. They were commanded by Christ,
" that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but
wait for the promise of the Father," which was un-
derstood in its fulfillment to be the baptism of the
Holy Spirit. And then it was added : " Ye shall
receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come
upon you." Endowed with this great gift, this
small band of early laborers and martyrs, without
the prestige of position or scholarship, went forth to
the mighty work which was appointed them ; and
though the strife was long, and in many cases
crowned with great suffering and death, they were
found more than a match for the proud philosophers,
the arts, and the institutions of that trying time.

2g2 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

That power is the same now that it was then ; that
divine power is now as it always has been, the re-
served force and inspiration of the world's progress
and salvation ; but it lies hidden in the life. The
life is God in the soul; and the power of - God
always goes with it.

There comes in connection with these remarks,
the remembrance of a man, whose life of love and
self-sacrificing labors strengthens and illustrates
them. I remember him well. He lived and labored
in the early part of this century in the State of
Maine — a man without the advantages of a public
education, but who had but one thought, one feel-
ing, that of the glory of God and the salvation of
men — the Oberlin of the American woods. He
wandered through the forests ; he crossed lakes and
rivers ; he went from house to house among the
poor and ignorant, in summer's heat and winter's
snows ; he preached in barns and school-houses, and
in the remote, rude dwellings of the woods, and
wherever he could find people who were ready to
hear ; fulfilling more than half a century of labors,
up to the very limit of human faith and human en-
durance. Such was our loved and venerated Father
Sewall. God was with him in power.

I was once connected with a church of great in-
telligence and not wanting in piety; some of whose

FOJVER OF ESSENTIAL O.R TRUE LIFE.

293

members have held high political positions, and
others have been distinguished for attainments in
science ; but of all the members of this truly leading
and useful church, the one who was thought to exert
the most religious influence, and is to this day per-
haps exerting the most influence, through the account
which is published of her life, was a poor negro wo-
man, who in her childhood was a slave. She dwelt
alone. During a period of eighteen years, she sup-
ported herself by washing and ironing for the stu-
dents in the neighboring college. And judged by
all outward measurements and incidents, and as the
world commonly judges, nothing could have been
lower in prestige, or lower in position. But her
heart was the dwelling-place of Christ. Her great
familiarity with the Bible, the spirit of prayer which
seemed always to be present with her, her gentle and
wise words of discreet and thoughtful encourage-
ment, her peace which flowed like a river, her sub-
lime and forgiving charity which never failed — these
beautiful and great results of a living principle in
the soul, made her known and felt as a mighty power
of God for many years. She was spoken of both in
the Church and in the community around, under the
name of " Happy Phebe ; " and the interesting
tract, published by the American Tract Society,
giving some account of her character and labors,

294 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

still preserves her precious memory, and perpetuates
the power of her holy life.

One instance more, which illustrates in a peculiar
manner the resources of God in raising up instru-
ments for his purposes, where human wisdom would
not be likely to look for them. I once knew a poor
woman. In early life we were near neighbors.
Time passed on ; and she heard of the slave, his
toils, his sufferings, and his terrible bondage, con-
tinued for centuries. It moved her heart to the
very foundations of her being ; and the world called
her insane. Being at a certain time in the city of
Boston, where through the aid of a near relative she
had found an humble abode, and touched by the re-
membrance of early days as well as by Christian
sympathy, I sought the place of her residence. It
was a Sabbath day, and to my astonishment I found
the street opposite to her house filled with people,
listening respectfully and earnestly ; and from an
upper window, this poor woman, the world's outcast,
uttering terrible truths, with the burning energy of
the words of the ancient prophets. I listened with
the multitude; and when she had concluded, I
went to her room, and seated by her side we talked
of the slave, whose sorrows had become her own
soul's sorrows ; and we talked also of our early days,

POWER OF ESSENTIAL OR TRUE LIFE. 295

and of the joys and sorrows of our little neighbor-
hood.

And in the conversation I had painful evidence
that her mind was shaken ; and that there was to
some extent, a foundation for what had been said of
her insanity. In leaving her my heart was strangely
and profoundly affected. I said to myself, how won-
derful are the mysteries of Providence. To-day,
with temples, rich in architectural beauty, and
preachers learned in theologies and worldly science,
their lips comparatively sealed on this great subject
of slavery ; and God, as if to put worldly wisdom to
shame, has chosen a poor woman, reduced almost to
beggary, without the advantages of education, and
with the intellect injured and broken by sorrows, to
utter His eternal truths, and to shatter the founda-
tions of the gates of hell.

The man who has the power of God in his soul,
will not feel much troubled when told that certain
false philosophies, whether found in Germany, in
France, in England, or in any other countries, will
overthrow the religion of Christ. The world and
its wisdom may leave us ; and we can easily afford
to part company with them ; but we cannot under
any circumstances, dispense with the power of the
Life. Let the friends of the divine truth, who are
dirdincr on their armor for the last great conflict, re-

t-2*

2^5 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

member that everything which appeared in Christ as
the " Son of Man," and was possessed and mani-
fested in His incarnation, is brought within the
sphere of humanity, and has become humanity's
eternal and mighty possession. Whatever Christ did
as the " Son of Man," any other son of man can do,
of whom it can be said, as the Apostle Paul said of
himself, " I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."
He can heal the sick, can cast out devils, can open
prison doors, can tread on serpents and not be hurt,
and most and mightiest of all, can become the in-
strument of imparting the Holy Ghost, and of heal-
ing the diseases of the mind. Therefore, we believe
that God will raise up instruments when emergencies
arise, and that, if the rich reject Him, He will choose
the poor, and if the learned reject Him, He will take
the ignorant, and if the strong reject Him, He will
make friends of the weak; and pouring into the ves-
sels of poverty, ignorance and weakness, the mighty
powers which are lodged in the bosom of essential
and Eternal Life, He will triumphantly complete the
work of redemption. And Christ on the throne,
and Christ in the soul of man, Christ in heaven and
Christ on earth, shall hold the sceptre of dominion
and shall reign forever and ever.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Locality of God and the Divine Moment — Personal
Experience.

At a certain time, in the course of my inward
personal history, I found myself in a state of inward
desolation, such as I had seldom and perhaps never
experienced before. God seemed to be hidden from
my view. Christ as a distinct object of conception
was withdrawn. I found nothing of that familiar
and delightful access to the great Source of Life,
whether denominated God or Christ, to which I had
been accustomed. The beautiful ministry, or what
seemed to be such, of angelic and spiritual presences
had departed. And in addition to this, there seem-
ed to be a weakening and disruption of the ties
which bound me to many of my earthly friends.
Both inwardly and outwardly my condition was one
of vacuity and deprivation, which apparently wanted
nothing to its completeness. It reminded me of
what I had once known in the deserts of Sinai,
where, standing on the tops of the highest moun-

2gg ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

tains, I beheld around me nothing but the rugged
cliffs ; no tree, no flower, no running brook, no sing-
ing bird.

Finding myself in this arid and painful condition
of things, which perhaps for the sake of convenience
may be denominated, in the language of the old
mystics, the " spiritual wilderness," I remained for a
time in a sort of amazement : unable to understand
its nature or its meaning. At last arousing from
the inactivity and confusion of spirit which natu-
rally attended it, I ventured in my supplications to
ask the Lord, what was the cause of these unlooked-
for experiences, and what the instruction which He
wished me to derive from them ; for I knew, al-
though He was hidden in great and unprecedented
mystery, He must be somewhere, where He could
listen to the sound of my voice. For a time no re-
sponsive utterance came ; neither to the outward
ear where I did not look for it ; nor to the interior
of the soul, where I had often heard it, in sugges-
tions and inspirations which left no doubt of the di-
vinity of their origin.

After such a time as seemed to be necessary to
impress me fully with the fact of this great desola-
tion, and also to train my heart to the unwavering
acceptance of it, as a condition of things which had
its significancy and its results, and to dwell quietly

LOCALITY OF GOD AND DIVINE MOMENT,

299

like a child at home amid its clouds and darkness, I
received from time to time, and through those inte-
rior sources which the Holy Spirit knows how to
open and employ, such intimations and teachings as
became afterwards of great spiritual value to myself,
and perhaps also to others, although I am aware
that inward experiences are very various, and that
it is best to let God do with us just what He
pleases.

In the first place, it was vividly recalled to mind,
as a part of the inward teaching of those trying but
instructive days, that, in consequence of the finite
nature of the human mind, all things and all events
are and must be made known, not by one broad
and all-embracing perceptivity, but in successive
moments of time. God knows all things simultane-
ously; but it requires I think not much argument
to show, inasmuch as the statement carries with it
its own evidence, that the finite mind, bounded by
the limit of its own finiteness, can know only by a
gradual uplifting of the veil of the future, and in
these successive moments. And it was made clear
also, in the course of these iqward teachings, that
this view, in consequence of the relations existing
among them, had reference to place as well as to
time ; and that neither successions in place, nor
successions in events, nor changes of any kind, could

300 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

take place and be made the subjects of knowledge
in any other way. And hence came an additional
teaching, based upon these general views, that we
are to find the true locality of God, not in any im
alined distant heavens where I liad been in the
habit of looking for Him, and thus localizing. Him
by my own will or choice, but that we must rather
recognize Him, as already present by the very ne-
cessities of his nature, in everything which exists or
takes place within the sphere of our knowledge ;
and that knowledge comes to us under the suc-
cessive revelations of successive moments. In other
words, the present moment, more than all others
and above all others, is the divine moment ; and
that the state of things, which is then made present
to us, whether it be in the form of places or objects,
or persons or events, constitutes to us the only true
and available locality of the Divine Nature. We
must meet God there, or meet Him nowhere. It
is therefore a great and glorious truth, that the
principle of the Universe, which we sometimes call
the Divine Life of the Universe, is HERE and NOW ;
that in the moment which now is, and nowhere else,
the great Life and Spirit of all things, always the
same and yet always changing, meets us face to
face, in every man that we meet; in every flower;
in every tree and plant and insect and animal ; in

LOCALITY OF GOD AND DIVINE MOMENT. 301

every joy and sorrow ; in all good and all evil ; in
all clouds and all sunshine ; in all blessings and all
curses; in all angels and all devils; in all virtues
and all crimes. So that it will always be found, if
we are out of position with the present moment,
either in the posture of our feelings or the error of
our acts, we lose something of God, by losing some-
thing of that knowledge which the present moment
brings.

And again, there was this additional and most
important teaching: The recognition of God in the
divine moment is, in the first instance and necessa-
rily, the recognition of Him as an objective or out-
ward God. But this outward manifestation of God,
or better, perhaps, this recognition of Him as hav-
ing a fixed and present relation to the thing or
event of the moment, calls forth the God subjective
or the God in our own souls. The God sincerely
recognized without, and the God actually existing
within, — using expressions which are adapted to
man's imperfect methods of thought, — may be re-
garded as always correlative and correspondent to
each other. And accordingly, if the event or fact
which the present moment reveals to us is one of
kindness, it calls forth in our own souls the divine
element of gratitude; if the event be one of sorrow,
it calls forth, in correspondence with the outward

3o2 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

occasion, the spiritual graces of submission and pa-
tience ; if the thing or event be of the nature of a
persecution, it is corresponded to by feelings of for-
bearance and forgiveness. The result of this com-
plex occasion, characterized by the objective on the
one side and by the subjective on the other, is, that
God outward is revealed through outward facts, and
that God in the soul is revealed through inward feel
ings.

Meeting together under a providential arrange-
ment, which has respect equally to both, they fur-
nish reciprocally the conditions and incitements of
development and action. So that the instruc-
tion revealed during the period of this singular and
trying experience, when compared and adjusted in
all its parts, seems to have been this — with a
heart devoted to God and full of God, no longer
seek Him in the heavens above or the earth be-
neath, or in the things under the earth, nor in any
locality which has the effect to restrict his name
and limit his existence, but recognize Him as the
great fact of the universe, separate from no place or
part, but revealed in all places and in all things and
events, moment by moment. And as eternity alone
will exhaust this momentary revelation, which has
sometimes been called the ETERNAL Now, thou
shalt thus find God ever present and ever new ; and

LOCALITY OF GOD AND DIVINE MOMENT. 303

thy soul shall adore Him and feed upon Him in the
things and events which each new moment brings ;
and thou shalt never be absent from Him and He
shall never be absent from thee.

Let us take an illustration : It happens as we
are walking the streets, that we unexpectedly meet
with a man who approaches us with words and
deeds of violence. He meets us in the present mo-
ment and at no other. It is a necessity that God
comes with him ; because God, by the necessities
of existence, resides in him physically, inasmuch as
He made him and sustains him. And if, in conse-
quence of the moral freedom which divine goodness
has made his inalienable birthright, it is not possible
for God to be In him as the originator of his vio-
lence and injustice, He is, nevertheless, present in
his providences. In other words, He is present in
the arrangement and issue of events, which at that
particular moment, in distinction from any other
moment and any other circumstances, presents the
man before us. He practically brings him into our
presence with all the evidences of his rebellion and
wickedness; the man is where he is because God
directs him to be there ; and He does it, in all prob-
ability, in order that this wicked man may HERE
and Now, under the overshadowings of the divine
moment,' be judged and condemned; and that, if it

304 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

be possible, he may be made anew and saved. And
this last is done, and possibly it is the special and
great object which God had in view in his provi-
dences, first, by the manifestation of God in our own
consciousness in feelings of which He is the author,
and also by outward signs and words expressive of
the inward feelings, given forth by the divine power
within us in the divine moment. So that we stand
up in the presence of this or any other form of wick-
edness, and we stand there in a great divine pur-
pose, in the outward manifestation of the inward
Christ, or if any one prefers it, of the inward Christ
spirit, in patience and forbearance, in meekness and
pity, with kind words for words of violence, and
with love for hatred. And thus looking for God,
finding Him, not thousands of miles off in place and
thousands of years hence in time, but as He is re-
vealed in the correlated and correspondent facts
and incidents of each successive moment, we shall
know experimentally that He becomes now, and
that, in the continuous application and issue of this
great principle, He becomes always, a presence and
a power, a source of goodness to ourselves and of
goodness to others, and with a recognized dwelling-
place, which has its center in our own hearts and its
circumference in the objects and events, including
their necessary relations, which the present moment

LOCALITY OF GOD AND DIVINE MOMENT. 305

reveals. Such to finite beings is the true locality
of God. Previously to this time and the instruc-
tions of this experience, I had intellectually learned
and known this great principle and law of the divine
presence. But in consequence of the unfavorable
influence of early habits of thought and feeling, it
became necessary to restore both the vividness of
the inward conviction, and to readjust and intensify
it as a rule of life. And it was for this, so far as I
was led to understand it, that I was led into the
desert. And it was thus, that losing God in one di-
rection, I found Him in another; and have learned,
that, if I am faithful to these instructions, and will
not get out of His way as He confronts me in the
mighty march of time and events, I can nevermore
lose Him.

In connection with what has been said, we stop
at this point to make a remark in relation to inte-
rior solitude, and what is known in experimental
writers of the earliest ages as inward aridness or vas-
tation. Such a state is not without its benefits. In
ancient Egypt, amid its wealth and intellectual ad-
vancement, the Hebrews learned much ; they be-
came masters, like the people among whom they
dwelt, of arts and letters, of which their own re-
corded history is a proof; but the arts they learned
and the knowledge they acquired, were worldly arts

306 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

and worldly knowledge. In the terrible desert,
through which they were led when they came out
of Egypt, they obtained knowledge of a different
kind, knowledge of a higher aspect and character,
and far more valuable. Accordingly in reading their
travels through the desert, we feel that we are read-
ing, if we are interiorly enlightened, the travels of
the human heart ; that we are becoming acquainted
with the mighty pilgrimage of the soul ; its liability
to error, its temptations, its sorrows, its progress in
knowledge and goodness ; and also the divine rela-
tions which exist between the lawgiver and those
under the law, and the difference between the life
moulded by obedience to law and the disordered
and ruined life which is the result of its violation.
The Hebrews learned as much and probably much
more, certainly much more that was valuable, during
their pilgrimage of forty years in the desert, than
during their four hundred years of residence among
the most enlightened people which the world had ever
seen. Can we not say then that the voice of wis-
dom found an utterance in the wilderness ? And so
in the solitudes and deserts of the spirit, when in-
teriorly we are led away from the land of flowers to
the rude habitations of the sands and rocks, the
land where smiles are exotics and joy is a stranger,
there remains to us, nevertheless, much of inward

LOCALITY OF GOD AND DLVIXE MOMEXT.

307

compensation. It is not without "a great purpose,
that our bruised and bleeding feet are smitten upon
the rocks. The voice of wisdom is heard in the
desolate wilderness of the soul. Such is the teach-
ing of national history. Such is the testimony, also,
of the deeply interior men of all ages ; of Moses
and Elijah ; of Christ, when led into the wilderness
to be tempted of satan ; of John the Baptist, whose
rugged nature found a congeniality with desolation
within and desolation without ; of St. Jerome, and
of Augustine, as recorded in his confessions ; of
Tauler, the philosopher, mystic, and revivalist of the
middle ages ; of St. John of the Cross, one of the
great explorers of the spiritual wilderness ; of John
Bunyan, the outward and inward sufferer and great
traveller in interior lands ; of George Fox and Wil-
liam Perm ; of many of the leaders and followers in
the Protestant Reformation ; of the early Methodists
and Puritans ; of all in all nations and of all names,
who have neither the power nor the inclination to go
to heaven on " flowery beds of ease."

But returning from the method of learning to the
things which have been taught, we proceed further
to say, that one of the marked things of this form
of experience, which we will characterize now as
LIVING BY THE MOMEXT, is, that it is infinitely
varied. Change, which is evidently incidental to the

30g ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

great fact of growth or progression, is one of the
great necessities of existence. It is moreover one
of those things, which in any true philosophy of the
universe, will be found to lie at the foundation of
the great problem of what constitutes the highest
amount of human happiness, and in what way such
happiness shall be realized. Meeting God in the
moment of God, which is necessarily the present
moment, we shall meet Him always the same but
always new ; always unchanged in his essence, but
changing always in his incidents. The divine mo-
ment, lifting as it emerges into being the veil that
rests upon forms and places and actions and events,
opens that little eyelid of eternity, and reveals God,
not in a perpetual identity of manifestation which
would tire our perception and annul our growth, but
in all possible varieties. He stands before us some-
times in the storm and sometimes in the sunshine ;
sometimes in the waste howling wilderness, and
sometimes in the field of flowers; in the palace and
the prison, in friendship and enmity ; in joy and
sorrow. And thus He is always revealing, step by
step, in harmony with the nature and extent of our
own capacities, the infinitudes of existence ; and al-
ways affording new elements of knowledge, new
tests of strength, and new foundations and applian-
ces of growth and happiness.

* LOCALITY OF GOD AND DIVINE MOMENT. 309

And it may further be remarked as something
worthy of notice, and as closely connected with
what has just been said, that those who live in the
divine moment arc relieved in a great degree from
the perplexity of conjectures and calculations, and
cannot be said, in the usual sense of the terms, to
have plans of action. It is certain that they do not
'have any, in the unconditioned or absolute sense.
Being in harmony inwardly and outwardly with the
facts of the present moment, it is the law of their
condition, that they shall do the work which it is
given them to do. Under the mastery of the pres-
ent, they see the objects that are now before them ;
they obey the orders which are now given ; and ac-
complish wnat now is, and nothing else.

It is impossible that the man who lives thus
sl'ould have any plans which are exclusively his
own ; any plans which are separate from the pur-
pose and the will of God. He cannot be in har-
mony with the present moment without being in
harmony with the will of God, as manifested in the
present moment ; and the divine will, thus mani-
fested, necessarily constitues the condition to which
all his actions and plans of action are subordinated.
So that it can justly be said in this view of things,
that the mind of the Infinite is substituted for his
own, and that God plans for him. Submitting his

nJ0 ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

own wisdom to the higher wisdom which is from
above, he can say in the spirit of Christ, whose
plan of action was established in eternity and was
unchangeable, that he " comes to do the will of the
Father who sent him."

And hence it is that one great sign of the prac-
tical recognition of the " divine moment " and of
our finding God's habitation in it, is constant calm-
ness and peace of mind. Events and things come
with the moment ; but God comes with them too.
And He comes, written all over with the divinity
of wisdom and the glory of the promises. So that
if He comes in the sunshine, we find rest and joy ;
and if He comes in the storm, we know He is King
of the storms, and our hearts are not troubled.
God himself, though possessing a heart filled with
the tenderest feelings, is, nevertheless, an everlast-
ing tranquillity ; and when we enter into His holy
tabernacle, his great movable tent, which is travel-
ling here and there under the shifting footsteps of
moment added to moment, our souls necessarily en-
ter into the tabernacle of rest.

And let it be added here, that the doctrine of
living by the moment suggests one of the prepara-
tory conditions, and furnishes in part, a philosophi-
cal explanation of the great doctrine of inward
inspiration. Inspiration, looking at the fact of the

LOCALITY OF GOD AND DIVINE MOMENT. <$n

thing as well as the etymology of the term, is the
in-breathing or the in-flowing of the Infinite into
the finite. And if we stand in the openings of the
present moment, with all the length and breadth of
our faculties unselfishly adjusted to what it reveals,
we arc in the best condition to receive what God is
always ready to communicate. So that there is not
merely a dogmatical affirmation, which is to be be-
lieved solely because it is affirmed, but an interior
and divine philosophy in those suggestive and spir-
itual words of Jesus : " And when they bring you
unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates and
powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye
shall answer or what ye shall say; for the Holy
Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye
ought to say."

Each moment of time is one of the successive
and separate letters of the alphabet, which go to
make up the great book of eternity. And eternity
being the sum of all moments, and therefore the res-
idence or locality of God in the higher sense, we are
thus learning the letters of that book in which will
be written out all truths of the Infinite, and all
truths and destinies for ourselves. To lose a mo-
ment by being out of harmony with the facts and
requisitions of the moment, is to lose a letter out of
the great book, and thus to lose something of its
14

312

ABSOLUTE RELIGION.

infinite and eternal meanings. It was thus that
God taught me while I was in the spiritual wilder-
ness. I was thus enabled to see, and perhaps more
clearly than others will be likely to do, who have
not passed through the same inward history, why
He shut the old gateways and vistas of spiritual
knowledge, which were suited to the beginnings of
inward experience, and required me to meet with
Him and to dwell with Him in the Eternal Now.
It w^as one of the lessons of the desert ; but the
desert, I mean the spiritual desert, is one of the
school-houses of the soul. And as soon as I had
learned the lesson, which it seems to have been the
object of the school of the desert to teach, the
cloud was gradually lifted ; the sunshine came down
upon the rocks ; the sands and pebbles grew up into
flowers ; I found the shepherd sitting beside the
still waters; and I came up out of the entangle-
ments of the wilderness into a firmer position and a
clearer light than I had ever known before.

THE END.

n'mi'ni iThe°'09lcal Seminary-Speer

1 1012 0101

2 5039